New House Building and Social Housing Sales, January to March 2011

Statistics on the number of new dwellings started and completed, and the number of social housing sales include data for Wales for the period January to March 2011.

The latest release updates the statistics previously released on 16 March 2011. 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 31 March 2010, there were 1.34 million dwellings in Wales.  Between 1 April 2010 and 31 March 2011, a total of 5,505 additional dwellings were built, 82 per cent of which were private sector dwellings.
• Between 1 April 2010 and 31 March 2011, a total of 375 socially rented dwellings have been transferred into the private sector through the sale of 113 local authority and 262 RSL dwellings, via Right to Buy and other schemes.

New House Building

• Annual trends show a small increase in the number of new dwellings started during 2010-11 compared with the previous two years though the overall level remained very low. The low level of starts over recent years has resulted in a significant decrease in completions, with 2010-11 seeing the lowest overall number of completions since the second world war.
• The most significant decline has been in the private sector whilst for Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) completions were at their highest level since 1998-99, largely financed by capital grant funding.

Social Housing Sales

• Overall social housing sales increased slightly during 2010-11, but the picture varied by landlord type. Local authority sales were down on the previous year while the sale of RSL dwellings was up by a quarter.

Contact

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

Next update

14 September 2011