New House Building and Social Housing Sales, April-June 2009

Statistics on both the number of new dwellings, started and completed, and the number of social housing sales include data for Wales for the period April to June 2009.

The latest release updates the statistics previously released on 10 June and 17 June 2009. The information on new house building is based on the reports of local authority building inspectors and the National House Building Council (NHBC). It does not include information from private approved inspectors.

Dwelling stock

• At the 31st March 2008 there were 1.33 million dwellings in Wales. Since 1st April 2008, 8,872 additional dwellings have been built, 89 per cent of which were private sector dwellings.
• Since 1st April 2008 a total of 493 socially rented dwellings have been transferred into the private sector through the sale of 177 local authority and 316 registered social landlord dwellings via Right to Buy and other schemes.

New House Building

• Overall the number of new dwellings started and completed has been falling, with starts falling by 33 per cent and completions falling by 19 per cent compared with the same period last year. However during the April to June 2009 quarter starts and completions were higher than in the previous two quarters.

Social Housing Sales

• The level of social housing sales fell dramatically during 2008-09 with only 397 total sales during the period, around two thirds less than during 2007-08. This trend has continued with sales during the April to June 2009 quarter down by 36 per cent compared with the same quarter the previous year.

Contact

Tel: 029 2082 5055
E-mail: stats.housing@wales.gsi.gov.uk

Next update

16 December 2009