England’s overall housing supply has fallen for the second year running, falling to 221,500 new homes completed in the 12 months to September 2024, according to Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) data. This figure is 10.7% lower than in September 2021.
However, the number of planning consent approvals is a better indicator of how many homes might be built going forward, and this figure makes for grim reading, falling by 31% in the three years to June 2024.
According to Savills, five English regions – including all of Southern and Eastern England – built fewer homes in the 12 months to Q3 2024 than the annual minimum called for by the current iteration of the Standard Method.
Savills reported in November: ‘By comparing homes granted consent to new home delivery over the 12 month period, we can roughly gauge whether supply is growing or falling. Only two regions, London and the North West, granted consent for substantially more homes than were delivered over the period, with the rest of the South likely to see supply staying the same and delivery in the Midlands and North set to fall.’
The company added that in the 12 months to September 2024, build to rent annual starts fell below 10,000 units for first time since 2016. This will not come as a surprise to regular readers of PIN because we reported almost one year ago that build to rent planning applications had fallen off a cliff, which meant that projections (by Savills) of around 26,000 build to rent completions every year between 2024 and 2033 were ‘a tad optimistic’.
Government is ignoring construction costs
Talking of being overly optimistic, in mid-December the Labour government continued with its pledge to build 1.5m homes during this parliament.
However, the head of the largest housebuilding firm in the UK - the newly created Barratt Redrow - responded by saying it would not be possible due to a severe skills shortage. Asked if there were enough workers to build the extra homes promised by the Prime Minister and his deputy Angela Rayner, Barratt Redrow chief executive David Thomas told the BBC: “The short answer is no.”
