Member Article

New Housing starts falling

The number of new homes being built fell in the first quarter of 2012 to 24,100.

According to figures released by the Department for Communities and Local Government, this was an 11% drop on the last three months of 2011, and 15% from the same period last year.

Following the release of the figures, the Government came under criticism from the National Housing Federation, Shelter and the Chartered Institute of Housing for not doing enough to fix the housing crisis.

It is now predicted that cuts to housing benefits in 2013 could exacerbate the housing deficit, and could cause homelessness to worsen.

Housing Minister Grant Shapps commented: “Far from rents rising, we have seen a real terms fall in private rents and I want to see councils using the powers that they already have to tackle the small minority of rogue landlords.

The Affordable Housing Programme was launched in February 2011, and aims to subsidies housing associations, councils and private builders to provide 150,000 new cheap homes for rent and sale.

While the report also indicated that there had been a small increase in the overall levels of new homes being completed, it was still at historically low levels. In 2011, 109,020 homes were completed in England, up from 103,300 in 2010 but down from the average of 142,000 for the previous decade.

Completions were said to be up to 118,000 in the 12 months to March 2012, but the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit has previously said that 240,000 homes need to be built each year to meet demand.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .

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