New social housing registrations continue to plummet - NHBC

Published by Jon Land for 24dash.com in Housing

The building of new social housing in the UK continues to stutter with numbers down 41% for the quarter March to May 2012, compared to the same period last year, new figures from NHBC revealed today.

The 7,090 public sector housing registrations for the quarter is down from 12,003 in 2011.

Meanwhile, registrations to build new homes in the private sector, the current engine for much-needed growth in the UK’s overall housing supply, have also decreased (3%) from the same period last year (20,035 in 2012 - 20,559 in 2011).

NHBC points out that the comparison against March – May 2011 is affected by the registration of approximately 2,800 London Olympic Village properties (split equally between the private and public sectors) during this period.

With these units taken out of the equation there was actually an increase of 5% within the private sector during this quarter and a 33% decrease in the public sector.

Several regions did however experience overall growth over the last three months, including the West Midlands (2,271 in 2012 - 1,879 in 2011) and Wales (1,286 in 2012 - 750 in 2011).

Richard Tamayo, NHBC Commercial Director said: “Our registration statistics continue to show a divide between the direction of travel for private and public sector registrations in the UK – with social housing levels falling but slight increases in the private sector.

“It is clear the Government is maintaining its focus on increasing housing levels, as seen by Vince Cable’s recent housing crisis summit with Grant Shapps. It is critical that we also continue to monitor initiatives such as the NewBuy scheme to assess their success in increasing the number of new homes built across the UK.”