Massive new homes slump: housebuilding starts by private builders in London fall 15 per cent

Developers started building just over 23,000 homes in London last year, a drop of more than 4,000 compared to the year before. 
Daniel Lynch

The number of new homes started by private housebuilders in London fell 15 per cent last year to the lowest level since 2013, figures reveal today.

Developers began building 23,130 homes in the capital in 2018, compared with 27,356 in 2017 and 33,774 in the recent peak year of 2015, according to data from analysts Molior London.

It means private housing starts have fallen by a third since the year that Sadiq Khan declared he would run for Mayor, pledging to tackle the housing crisis.

The London Assembly’s housing committee was meeting today to discuss an internal report on the Mayor’s progress towards hitting housing targets.

15 %


 Fall last year in new homes started by private firms in London 

The report says: “London has never recently been further away from building the number of homes it needs”, with a shortfall in 2016-17 of more than 24,500.

Molior’s latest quarterly report said its figures for London’s new homes market “make for depressing reading”.

In Zone 1 there has been a 60 per cent collapse in starts over three years, to the lowest level since 2011.

The report said planning delays, council and City Hall demands for more affordable housing and rising costs had curbed enthusiasm for building homes in London.

60%


 Drop in Zone 1 new home starts over the past three years

A huge backlog of unsold flats is building up in central London. Almost half homes under construction in the capital have no buyers lined up, compared with just a third in 2014, according to the Molior report — based on interviews with the developers of all 714 schemes of 20 homes or more across London.

James Murray, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Residential Development, said: “What London needs is far more council, social rented, and other genuinely affordable homes.

"That’s why last year Sadiq launched the first-ever City Hall programme dedicated to new council housing, and he started building a record number of genuinely affordable homes — including, as the London Assembly report admits, ‘the highest number of social rent starts since 2010/11’. ”

He added that London was “far too reliant on big private developers” and the Government must give City Hall and London councils more investment and powers to build new homes.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in