The net additional dwellings figures for 2023/24 reveal a 6% fall in housing
supply, the drop signals even more troubling trends as other indicators such as
planning permissions and Energy Performance Certificate registrations show home
builders are struggling to deliver desperately-needed new homes.
The latest annual housing supply statistics report
198,610 new build completions in England for 2023/24. The figure is down 6.5%
from the previous year, where there were 21,364 new build completions. The
number of new build completions in 2023-24 is 9% below the 2019-20 peak.
Overall, the annual housing supply in England amounted
to 221,070 net additional dwellings in 2023-24, down 6% in 2022-23. Net
additions are now 11% below their 2019-20 peak of 248,600.
While this recent announcement underlines the
significant challenge to reach Government’s housing targets, wider indicators
predict further falls in supply are still to come.
The net additions data published today captures
completions in the year to March 2024. However, EPC registrations and granted
planning permissions in the months since the March 2024 predict an increasingly
negative picture for home building.
As it stands, the number of units being granted
planning permission currently sits at 130,000 fewer than the 370,000 the
Government is aiming for.
The figures paint a bleak picture of a continued
decline in housing supply overall in the last two years, showing that the
industry is feeling the pressure of inflationary economic conditions. Work is
needed to reverse this trend and support the industry's ability to deliver and
meet the ambitious targets set earlier this year by the new government.
While the Government has taken positive first steps to
support home building — targeting 1.5 million new homes over the next five
years, reversing previous reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework
(NPPF), and announcing plans to recruit 300 new planners —the housing industry
faces a range of ongoing challenges.
Moreover, the significant impact of inflation and
mortgage affordability on the housing market underscores a critical need for
Government intervention. For the first time in 60 years, there is no effective
government support for homeownership, and without it, many first-time buyers
remain locked out of the housing market. The industry is calling for targeted
measures that will make it possible for more first-time buyers to access
affordable lending and mortgages, helping to address both supply and demand issues
in the housing sector.
Collectively, these figures and policy challenges
highlight the urgent need for sustained government action to support the
housing market and ensure that the industry can deliver the homes the nation
desperately needs.
Neil Jefferson, Chief Executive of the Home Builders
Federation, said the figures and other, more up-to-date indicators of new
housing supply starkly illustrates the scale of the challenge we face if we are
to increase housing supply to the ambitious level Government is a quite rightly
targeting.
“The positive planning policy reforms announced in July
were welcome but will take time to come through and the decline in output has
been caused by multiple factors that go beyond planning policy,” he said.
“It is the first time in decades there has been no
support scheme in place for first-time buyers and with only a limited market
for new homes there is a very obvious constraint on output.
Jefferson continues: “Delays in the planning process
caused by a lack of resources and inefficiency at a local level are a daily
feature of trying to build homes while 160,000 new homes remain blocked because
of European rules on nutrient neutrality.
He concludes: “If the Government can reverse the
decline in house building of recent years it will deliver a huge social and
economic boost to our communities, but unfortunately the starting point is a
difficult one that will require an ongoing concerted effort to address”
