Government house-building figures exlude around a fifth of all new build completions every year due to ‘flawed’ methodology, a new report finds.
An analysis by the Home Builders’ Federation (HBF) showed Whitehall’s quarterly and annual House Building Statistics underreport new build completions in 75% of local authorities.
Published in Ghost Towns Report, the analysis revealed an average of 153 new homes are ‘lost’ in each of those areas. In total, this means around 30,000 new builds are not counted in the official numbers.
More than half of new build homes in areas such as Birmingham, Liverpool, Leicester, Salford and many London Boroughs are completely unaccounted for in the quarterly series, the HBF found.
As a result, a town equivalent to the size of Stevenage is being ‘lost’ every year.
The Net Supply of Housing data series, which the HBF argued is more reliable, shows more than 181,000 homes were added to the housing stock in 2014/15 of which 155,000 were new build, up 20% year on year.
The builders pressure group warned the poor statistics provide industry and Government critics with ‘ammunition to criticise.’
‘Housebuilding has increased significantly in recent years but the continual publication and use of inaccurate statistics is painting a negative picture that is undermining the progress being made in tackling the housing shortage,’ said the executive chairman of the HBF, Stewart Baseley.
‘The Government's housing policies and the industry are delivering, and it is incredibly frustrating that official statistics are not reflecting what is happening on the ground but instead presenting an open goal for critics.’
Council chiefs have also called for ‘bold new action’ to solve the housing crisis in response to the housebuilding figures.
