New Home Completions and dwelling stock figures for England released
The estimated number of residential homes in England produced by the Department for Communities and Local Government statistics were released on Thursday 25 April 2013. The figures show that the estimated number of dwellings in England increased by 0.59% on the previous year to 23.1 million. This is the lowest annual increase in any of the previous 10 years and demonstrating not enough new homes are being built.
This is split into 19 million private dwellings (owner-occupied and private rented) and 4 million social rented homes. The Social rented stock rose by 12,000 between March 2011 and March 2012.
Total annual housing completions for 2012 were 115,620, an increase of 1% on the previous year. The current level of completions is still 35% below the December 2007 peak level of 177,000. New Home completions fell through 2008, 2009 and in the year to December 2010 just 107,000 new homes were completed.
In the 12 months to December 2012, the majority of new homes started were in Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Northamptonshire, along the M5 corridor from Devon up to Worcestershire and along the A303 route from London through Hampshire into Wiltshire.
Despite falling over recent years the percentage of owner-occupied homes remains at 65%.