A recent jump in new home building permits could see London reach the official targets this year, according to the latest London New Homes Monitor from Stirling Ackroyd.
The number of new residential properties given permission has increased by 73 per cent since the end of last year, with 11,870 homes entering the construction pipeline in the first quarter of 2015.
The number of new homes approved by the planning system between January and March represents an annualised figure of 47,460 new homes across Greater London. This means homes are now receiving the go-ahead fast enough to hit official city hall and UK government targets.
These approvals represent 82 per cent of the 14,400 total homes applied for in the first quarter. Had every single home building application been approved, London would now be well on track to housing the predicted annual population growth of London, with what would have been an annualised 57,590 homes.
London has seen a 211 per cent boom in the number of homes started within the first three months of this year and a further rise is possible.
Annualised, the number of housing starts in the first quarter stands at some 38,200, just shy of government housing targets, but more than three times the number of housing projects started in the fourth quarter of 2014, and up 54 per cent compared to the number of starts in the same quarter last year.
While the numbers of planning permissions and home starts are accelerating, the completion figures are still low. The opening quarter saw just 5,420 completed homes, meaning that this number of new properties finished in the first quarter only annualises to a much less impressive 21,680 new homes per year. While relatively small the number of finished homes has been rising steadily since the third quarter of 2014 and the completions in the first three months of this year represents a 29 per cent increase on the previous quarter.
Andrew Bridges, managing director of Stirling Ackroyd, comments:
“New homes are on the way. Having stuttered for so long, London has developed a clear housing deficit. If this pipeline of new property comes to fruition, it will represent exactly the heavy-duty, industrial scale of response needed to start filling the housing hole.
“Things are finally going in the right direction, yet in fact, government targets may not be set high enough. Our analysis shows London needs to build an average of 57,000 new homes a year just to cope with expected population growth over the next decade. That means astronomical improvements in approvals and building starts need to be sustained, and even improved upon, for the next three quarters just to meet what’s needed this year. So Londoners should hope this is more than a brief alignment of the stars, and any complacency now would be a mistake.”
Loading ...