Housing starts in England fell 8% year on year in the first quarter of 2018, new figures show.
Starts were estimated at 39,350 in the quarter to March this year, an 8% drop on the same period a year ago, and 5% down on the previous quarter.
Completions over the quarter to March 2018 also fell, down 4% on the year before to 38,160 and 9% lower than in the previous quarter according to Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government figures.
This is not a paywall. Registration allows us to enhance your experience across Construction Management and ensure we deliver you quality editorial content.
Registering also means you can manage your own CPDs, comments, newsletter sign-ups and privacy settings.
Annual new build dwelling starts totalled 157,480 in the year to March 2018, down 3% compaed with the year to March 2017.
Source: Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government
The news came as Sir Oliver Letwin, who is carrying out a major review into house building for Prime Minister Theresa May said the government needed to invoke a war spirit in order to meet the challenge of building 300,000 homes a year by 2020.
Letwin said ministers and officials needed to emulate Britain’s effort to build Spitfires during the Second World War to help construct the homes the country needs, and also warned that the slow provision of new power lines and transport links was holding up construction of houses by “years and years”.
Letwin’s interim report came after May tasked him with explaning the “significant gap between housing completions and the amount of land allocated or permissioned in areas of high housing demand and making recommendations for closing it”.
Among his conclusions in his interim report was the recommendation that the different types of housing tensures on sites should be increased, with more private rented homes, affordable homes, social rented housing and self-build sites alongside the usual homes for sale.
He also called for a “flash programme” of on-the-job bricklayer training in order to create the estimated 15,000 bricklayers needed to meet the government’s housing target.
