Homes shortage fear after building plunges by quarter

NEW home registration in Yorkshire plunged by almost a quarter in 2011, according to new figures, fuelling fears of a housing shortage.

Industry body the National House Building Council (NHBC) said registrations in Yorkshire and the Humber region fell 23 per cent to 5,630 in 2011, from 7,340 a year earlier.

The gulf between housing development in Yorkshire and the South widened, with the number of new homes registered in Greater London surging 49 per cent to 24,000.

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Registrations in Yorkshire have fallen from around 14,000 a year in 2007, according to the NHBC. Only the North East and Northern Ireland saw a steeper fall in the number of new homes being built.

The Yorkshire Post is trying to address the disparity with our for Give Us a Fair Deal campaign.

Across the UK housebuilders registered a broadly flat number of new homes, with 115,020 in 2011 compared with 115,460 in 2010.

The only growth was in Greater London and Scotland, however, where registrations were lifted five per cent to 8,580 as more social housing was built.

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The number of formally completed homes increased nine per cent to 113,340.

Housing charity Shelter said the figures show Britain’s housing shortage at crisis point. “With a quarter of a million new homes needed each year just to meet demand, the Government needs to be far more ambitious if it serious about delivering the affordable homes that millions of struggling families are crying out for,” said a spokeswoman.

“Decades of failure to build enough homes hasn’t just resulted in sky-high house prices, but is also responsible for an increasingly expensive rental market.”

Construction rates remain low as would-be buyers are deterred by rising unemployment, austerity measures, worries over Europe’s debt crisis and rising bills.

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NHBC chief executive Imtiaz Farookhi said the regional variation may mean the gulf between London and the rest of the UK becomes “more pronounced”.

He added the rate of UK housebuilding was well below predicted need. “The last quarter of 2011 was particularly weak, with little sign of the cautious growth the industry experienced earlier in the year,” he said.

“Independent reports predict housing shortfalls over the coming years and a decline in the wider construction sector during 2012. Such figures are a cause for concern and place even greater pressure on the successful delivery of the Government’s housing strategy.”

The NHBC said the number of affordable or local authority homes built in Yorkshire in 2011 “substantially increased”, but did not provide a breakdown.

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York-based housebuilder Persimmon, one of the country’s biggest builders, yesterday revealed it built around 9,300 homes in 2011. This was broadly level with a year earlier, but significantly down on the 16,700 homes it built in 2006.

The NHBC’s figures come from registered builders who construct around 80 per cent of the UK’s new homes.