New House Building and Social Housing Sales, October to December 2010

Statistics on the number of new dwellings, started and completed, and the number of social housing sales include data for Wales for the period October to December 2010.

The latest release updates the statistics previously released on 15 December 2010. 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.

The key points from the latest release are:

Dwelling stock

• At the 31 March 2010, there were 1.34 million dwellings in Wales.  Between 1 April 2010 and 31 December 2010, a total of 4,311 additional dwellings were built, 84 per cent of which were private sector dwellings.
• Between 1 April 2010 and 31 December 2010, a total of 288 socially rented dwellings have been transferred into the private sector through the sale of 81 local authority and 207 RSL dwellings, via Right to Buy and other schemes.

New House Building

• Trends in both the number of new dwellings started and completed continue to fluctuate. Overall, starts have been increasing since the low point in the October to December quarter 2008. Completions were at their lowest point for the October to December quarter since the mid 70s, although for RSLs, completions were at their highest since October to December 1998.

Social Housing Sales

• Overall, social housing sales have increased slightly since the beginning of 2009, though the 113 dwellings sold during the October to December quarter 2010, represents a 14 per cent increase on the same period last year. The majority sold (78 per cent) were RSL dwellings.

Contact

Tel: 029 2082 3295
E-mail: stats.housing@wales.gsi.gov.uk

Next update

15 June 2011