Housing in England: key facts

In 2007/8 47% of new homes built were 3+ bedroom houses, 45% of new homes were flats.

In June qtr 2008 overall housing starts fell by 12 per cent compared with the same period a year ago;  affordable housing starts are at their highest level for 11 years.    In 2007 the number of market homes built (152,700) exceeded the average for the past 50 years (142,300 between1958-2007) and reached its highest level since 1989.

Housing output overall is low compared with output over the past 50 years largely because of the large fall in the construction of affordable, ie subsidised, housing. On average, more than 150,000 affordable homes were built each year in the 1950s and more than 100,000 in the 1960s and 1970s. This fell to 44,000 in the 1980s and 26,000 in the 1990s. Just 13,000 were built in 2003, 22,000 in 2007.

Housing densities [2]

Number of dwellings built per hectare (dpha) in 2007 = 45.

Average density has risen annually since 2001, having been around 20-25 dpha for some years. 

Land recycling [2]

Percentage of dwellings on previously developed land and from conversions in 2007 = 75%.The national target of 60% of homes on brownfield sites by 2008 was achieved in 2000. 

Brownfield land [3]

Previously developed land available for development– hectares = 62,100.Previously developed land suitable for housing – hectares = 26,500 – enough for more than a million homes building at 40 homes per hectare. 

Countryside and Green Belt [4]

Area of countryside lost to development = 23 square miles a year, or an area the size of Southampton.Housing development accounts for approximately half of this.

Undeveloped land lost to housing development in the Green Belt in 2004 = 200 hectares (100 homes). 

Developers’ landholdings [5]

The leading UK housebuilders held around 240,000 housing plots with full or outline planning permission in 1998. This figure rose by 44% to 341,500 plots in 2005. 

Empty homes and second homes

Number of vacant dwellings (rounded to nearest ‘000) 1 April 2007 = 673,000.[7]

England has a surplus of homes over households.[6]

The North West region has the most empty homes (129,000) followed by the South East (83,700) and London (83,600). The South East, London and Eastern regions contain between them more than a third of empty homes (228,000).[7]

Number of English families with a second home in England in 2005/6 = 242,000.8  

1 DCLG  live tables and housing statistics,  June and September 2008

2 Land Use Change Statistics (LUCS 22A), DCLG, January update 2008

3 Previously-Developed Land that may be available for Development: England 2007, DCLG, August 2008

4 CPRE analysis of DCLG LUCS data, 2008

5 CPRE analysis of data in developers’ annual reports, 2007

6 CPRE analysis of DCLG housing statistics, 2008

7 Empty Homes Agency, 2008

8 DCLG, 2007