New house building, October to December 2012

This Statistical Release presents information on the number of new dwellings started and completed in Wales for the period October to December 2012.

The latest release updates the statistics previously released on 12 December 2012. The information on new house building is based on the reports of local authority building inspectors and the National House Building Council (NHBC), which is a private approved inspector. It does not include information from other private approved inspectors.

The key points from the latest release are:

• during 2011-12, the number of starts decreased for the first time since 2008-09, bringing the figure back down to a similar level to that seen at the beginning of the economic downturn in 2008-09. However during the first three quarters of 2012-13 the numbers of starts recorded were higher than those during 2011-12
• on an annual basis the number of completions in Wales increased only slightly (1 per cent) during 2011-12, probably due to an increase in the number of starts between 2008-09 and 2010-11. Though this increase carried through into the first half of 2012-13, completions during October to December 2012 fell to an all time low for an October to December quarter
• in recent years the number of new dwellings completed for the private sector has been steadily falling, however during 2011-12 private sector completions increased whilst RSL completions, which had generally been increasing, decreased.  However up until the end of December 2012 the total number of completions recorded during 2012-13, for both the private sector and RSLs, were lower than during the first three quarters of 2011-12

Contact

Tel: 029 2082 5055
Email: stats.housing@wales.gsi.gov.uk

Next update

June 2013 (provisional - to be confirmed on 'Due out soon' page)