Sharp fall in West Midlands house building

As a result, one local expert is calling for more planning officers to be hired to speed up permission for new housing developments.

The number of new homes started by builders across the country fell at its steepest rate for three years in the three months to the end of June, the latest official figures show.

A 14 per cent decline in housing starts to 33,280 in the April-June period was the sharpest since the January-March period of 2012, according to the Government's own seasonally-adjusted data.

Starts were six per cent lower year-on-year.

But the situation was twice as bad in the West Midlands, where housing starts were down by nearly a third.

Andy Argyle, a partner at accountants KPMG in Birmingham, said the latest Government house building figures showed just 870 homes were started in the three months to June in the West Midlands.

"These house building figures show a worrying 30 per cent decrease from the 1,250 starts in the West Midlands in the first quarter of 2015. This is a decrease well above the national average of a 14 per cent decrease.

"Nationally, it's predicted at the end of the year we will have built 140,000 homes, which falls significantly short of the 250,000 homes a year we need to keep up with demand, and the West Midlands seems to be in line to be hit by a higher than average shortfall."

Mr Argyle added: "Recent Government announcements around releasing brownfield land and relaxing planning laws should help boost supply as they come on line, but much more needs to be done and the devil is in the detail.

"While the £10m set aside in the recent Government Starter Homes announcement to prepare brownfield sites for build can only be welcomed, had that money been instead put towards funding additional planning officers it would have a much bigger impact. And that's the key – in a climate where funding continues to be tight, every penny must be spent in the most effective way, which is why the housing sector and public must continue to call for a long-term strategy.

"While the big problem is still access to reasonably priced land, the Government needs to think more innovatively.

"The cap on local authority borrowing could be raised; green-belt swaps could be introduced to free up low-value green belt land; and of course the momentum behind the West Midlands Combined Authority brings a real opportunity to do things differently.

"The Government is increasingly showing that it recognises the housing crisis is real – now we need some lateral thinking to fix it."

The latest national figures show the pace of new house building is 32 per cent below its peak level in 2007, though still 94 per cent above a trough at the height of the financial crisis in 2009.

The sharp decline in the number of new housing starts in the latest quarter comes in shapr contrast to record-breaking figures at the start of the year.

According to the figures from the Department for Communities and Local Government, in the 12 months to June housing completions totaled 131,060, a 15 per cent increase on the previous 12-month period.

But housing charity Shelter said this was only half the level needed to deal with the country's housing shortage.

Chief executive Campbell Robb said: "Once again, these figures show that we're not building anywhere near the number of homes needed each year, leaving millions of ordinary hard-working people priced out.

"And worryingly, despite claims by the Government that progress is being made to solve our chronic housing shortage, the number of new homes started has actually decreased."

But housing minister Brandon Lewis defended the figures, said: "Our One Nation Government has got the country building again with today's figures showing that 131,060 extra homes have been built in the past year.

"This has provided a real boost to the UK's construction industry and is delivering the homes that hard-working people rightly deserve."