New home starts slumped 23% to 134,570 in England this year compared to 12 months ago, underling the task ahead of the new government to boost housebuilding to levels not seen since the late 1960s.
New home completions fell 9.4% to 158,420 over the same period, according to provisional data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
In the second quarter of the year, new home starts fell 10.7% to 44,550 from a year ago, while second-quarter completions tumbled 65% to 25,510 over the same period.
The data shows the scale of the task of the new Labour government to build 1.5 million homes over the next five years, a rate of 300,000 homes a year. Over the last five years the UK built around one million homes.
The last time the UK built over 300,000 homes was in 1969/70, when 306,860 dwellings were built, according to official data.
This week at the Labour Party conference, Deputy Prime Minister and secretary of state for housing Angela Rayner said: “Not enough are being built. The Tories failed to meet their targets year, after year, after year. Michael Gove handed back nearly £2bn to the Treasury in unspent housing funds.
She added: “Mortgages have soared. Leaseholders are left at the mercy of eye-watering charges. Renters face crippling rent hikes in damp and mouldy homes.”
The government will publish its updated National Planning Policy Framework paper by the end of the year, which will raise housing targets and make them mandatory for local councils.
This will include development on green belt and ‘grey belt’ land, which the government classes as “lower quality” or derelict areas of the green belt.
However, a planning reform working paper published this week reiterated that “the first port of call for development should be brownfield land”.
