Levelling off
Official statistics released yesterday by The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) show a total of 243,770 net additions to dwelling stock were delivered in England in the year to March 2020. This represents an increase of over 0.8% compared to the number of homes delivered over the same period last year. While this continues the trend of increased housing delivery year on year since the start of 2013, the rate of increase has slowed considerably, down from 8.8% in the previous year.
Homes continue to reach the market through a range of different avenues. In the 12 months to March 2020, 26,925 homes in England were delivered through change of built use, 8.1% fewer than the same period in the previous year and now accounting for 11% of all delivery. Of those, just over 12,000 were delivered through permitted development, with office to residential making up 4% of all net additions in the year to March 2020.
Delivery in the capital
London saw the biggest increase in delivery on the previous year of all regions across England. There were 41,718 net additions in London for an increase of 13.9% on the previous year. Significantly this figure almost meets the existing London Plan target of 42,000 homes per annum. However, more will need to be done in order to reach the emerging target of 52,000 homes set out in the draft London Plan. Kensington and Chelsea saw the largest increase in among all London boroughs, with the number of net additions increasing fourfold to 511 in the year to March 2020. Tower Hamlets saw a similarly large increase, with the number of additional dwellings almost three times higher than the previous year. Crucially this was the largest change in London in absolute numbers, with an increase of over 3,000 homes between the two years.
East of England saw the biggest fall in net additions, with 27,758 homes delivered in the year to March 2019, total delivery of homes across the region was down by 7.0%. The fall comes after a substantial increase to net additions in the previous year, where the region saw an increase of 17%. Despite the fall in delivery, the East of England still made the third largest contribution to dwelling stock of all regions, benefitting from strong new build markets of Central Bedfordshire and South Cambridgeshire, between them delivering almost 4,000 net additional dwellings.
Housing Delivery Test
With new dwelling figures comes the 2020 Housing Delivery Test, this year with the minimum threshold for delivery increasing to 75% of housing need over three years. Of the 317 local authorities across England, 60% passed the test, delivering over 95% of their housing need in the three years to March 2020.
At the other end of the scale, 20% of local authorities saw their housing delivery fall below the minimum threshold. These local authorities will face the presumption in favour of sustainable development as the test’s most severe sanction for under-delivery. Those failing to meet the 75% minimum threshold for delivery were largely in and around the London greenbelt, and in local authorities neighbouring other core urban centres across the country.
Map of 2020 Housing Delivery Test results available here
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