The shortfall of new homes in England is set to reach more than a million by 2022 as the gulf between building houses and demand from a growing populations widens, new research shows.
Since 2005 England has seen a cumulative shortfall of more than 530,000 new homes and the projection for the next five years suggests that the situation is not going to get any better.
The analysis from conveyancing search provider Search Acumen using official figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggests that there is enough brownfield land to provide the space to meet housing demand.
Search Acumen compared the volume of new homes completed in England each year since 1976 with new dwellings needed to accommodate the growing number of households over the same period.
It estimated household growth by assessing annual ONS birth, death and migration data, and used the ONS’ average annual number of people deemed a household to determine how many new homes would meet the extra demand.
According to the data, in the mid-noughties the creation of new households outstripped supply for the first time in three decades, a trend which has accelerated as the population in England has increased. This drop has been exacerbated by the average UK household size reducing by 16%, from 2.78 persons in 1976 to 2.34 in 2016, meaning more but smaller households putting increasing demand on property supply.
