New homes fall again in government's first six months
The number of new homes in England continued to fall during the first six months that Labour was in power, analysis by BBC Verify suggests.The BBC's housing tracker shows every region of England had a year-on-year fall in new homes in the second half of 2024.About 107,000 new homes were recorded since last July's election, down 10% on the same six months a year earlier.Experts warn Labour's manifesto target for 1.5 million new homes by the next election will be hard to achieve, although the latest figures do not yet show the effects of housing targets and planning reforms.The government said it would deliver the homes and work was under way to "get Britain building again".
The Labour government's targets for English councils, requiring 370,000 homes a year, were finalised in December. It expects to see the number of new homes rising "significantly" in about 2026-27, once reforms have taken effect.The data analysed by the BBC comes from energy performance certificates (EPCs), a leading indicator of new homes.
BBC Verify analysis shows the number of EPCs for new homes lodged in the six months to December 2024 fell by 11,800 across England compared with the same period of 2023.The biggest fall was in the North West, down by more than 27% while Yorkshire and The Humber saw a decrease of nearly 15%.Decreases in the West Midlands and the North East were slight, at a few dozen homes.
It can take on average almost four years from application to building completion, for sites with up to 100 homes, says planning consultancy Lichfields.Director Rachel Clements said the previous Conservative government's changes in 2023, which removed mandatory housing targets, meant developers were less likely to submit an application because of the likelihood of refusal."This negative housing policy environment has led to a decrease in planning applications submitted, let alone approved, let alone houses built," she said. "Labour are rightly trying to turn the dial on this. Time will tell if it can deliver the enormous uplift needed."The Conservative party has been approached for comment.
Housing market analyst Neal Hudson, of BuiltPlace, said there were no easy solutions."There's been no money forthcoming from government to subsidise delivery by putting homes into the social or private rented sector, which is something that governments did during previous market downturns," he said.Home Builders Federation chief executive Neil Jefferson said: "The planning changes are very positive, but were never on their own going to result in an increase in activity and further policy levers will need to be pulled to stimulate supply."A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said Labour had inherited "the worst housing crisis in living memory"."Work is already under way to get Britain building again, which includes overhauling the broken planning system and restoring mandatory housing targets for councils," he said."We are also increasing government investment in housing to £5 billion for this year, including an extra £500 million for the existing Affordable Homes Programme."
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About the data
Every new home, whether a new build or a conversion, must have an EPC by law within five days of construction work being finished. This makes them a leading indicator of new housing in England, although the figures differ from the official statistics on net additional dwellings produced once a year and with an eight-month lag.The main differences are that EPCs do not account for demolitions and may be lodged some time before homes are ready to live in, possibly in a different financial year.We have used EPCs because other quarterly statistics on new housebuilding in England tend to be an undercount. The government department in charge of housing has also used EPCs to estimate numbers of new homes while waiting for its annual net additional dwellings statistics to be published.
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