Seasonally adjusted house building starts in England have seen a zero per cent change in the June quarter and are at estimated at 36,230, according to the house building figures released by the Department for Local Communities and Government (DCLG).
However, the figures revealed there was some growth on an annual basis, with the seasonally adjusted level of starts in June 2014 up 18 per cent on the same quarter the previous year.
By contrast, completions on a seasonally adjusted basis are estimated at 29,540 in the June quarter 2014, 6 per cent higher than the previous quarter, and seven per cent higher than the same period last year.
Seasonally adjusted starts are now 112 per cent above the dip in the March quarter 2009 — but are still 26 per cent below the peak in March 2007, while completions are 39 per cent below the high of March 2007.
Annual housing starts totalled 137,780 in the 12 months to June 2014, up by 22 per cent compared with the year before, while completions were up seven per cent from last year, at 114,440.
While the figures may be showing an increase from the trough in 2009, they have done little to assuage fears that the UK is not building enough homes to supply demand.
Duncan Kreeger, director of West One Loans, said: “This is not the flood of new homes that we need. Builders are striving valiantly compared to the darkest days of 2009 — but that was half a decade ago.
“The UK property industry can’t forever compare itself against the benchmark of its deepest troughs. We still need to provide twice as many homes again every year.
“Planning changes are one thing, and are getting projects flowing. But today’s figures demonstrate the other, financial, bottleneck: house builders are completing current projects first before starting on new sites. For the required numbers of homes we’ve got to get started right away, as soon as sites become available.
“Greater resourcefulness is critical too — converting and refurbishing is often easier and more profitable than the painstaking work of ground-up development.
“Here, finance matters as much as the supply of bricks and cement. Lenders who have learnt the lessons of the financial crisis must embrace the real challenge of providing more places to live — not just extending bigger mortgages. Otherwise we will be living with the credit-crunch for ever.”
