Government 120,000 homes short of new-build target

The government has failed to reach its 2021 new-build target by 39%, a shortfall of 120,000 homes, according to data from property sales platform Unlatch.

Unlatch collected data on the number of new builds completed across the UK each year and compared this government targets.

The latest figures show the government’s biggest failure came in 2021, when just 181,810 new homes were built, 40% below the target of 300,000.

In 2012, only 133,056 new builds reached the market and while this figure has been increasing since then, with 210,719 built in 2019-20, it is still well below goals set.

Previous Labour government’s have also failed to reach their own goal of building 240,000 new homes a year, with their closest effort in 2007 when 215,862 new homes were completed.

Lee Martin, Head of UK for Unlatch, said: ‘The complications posed by the recent pandemic will no doubt provide the Government with a convenient excuse to mask yet another year of failure when it comes to the delivery of new homes. 

‘But the reality is that this failure is not a recent occurrence, and both the Labour and Conservative parties have failed to seriously honour their responsibility to build more homes for going on 15 years now. 

‘This is no doubt due to their archaic, lethargic approach to housebuilding and a failure to adopt the evolving technologies and practices that are helping many housebuilders to streamline their internal process and deliver more homes, without compromising on quality or revenue.

‘The planning system has a huge part to play, as this seems to be the biggest (but not the only) ‘road block’. The current Government has diagnosed the planning system as central to the failure to build enough homes, particularly where housing need is at its most severe. There’s a continued focus on supporting private sector delivery, however this is surely down to them to solve with many of the largest national housebuilders willing to give feedback, yet currently the revamp is still paused.’

In related news, council housebuilding in London has reached record-breaking figures this year, as statistics show work has begun on 4,946 council homes in the 2021/22 financial year.

Photo by Sandy Millar