Government must take urgent action to kick-start private house building projects and aid home ownership as new figures underline fears that demand will continue to outstrip supply.

According to the Tackling the housing crisis: A policy review and recommendations report from the Federation of Master Builders, projections from the Department for Communities and Local Government and Experian suggest that the number of additional households in England between 2010-2015 will be 1.406m, competing against a backdrop of 884,000 net additions to England’s current housing stock over the same period.

Figures suggest the housing demand supply gap is set to increase by 83% this year

‘For too long the housing problem has been overlooked with the result that a person buying a house on their own now needs to be near the top 10% of earners in the country and this problem is only going to get worse until the Government takes drastic action to revive private house building,’ Brian Berry, director of external affairs at the FMB said.

Figures suggest the demand supply gap is set to increase by 83% this year, as net dwelling stock figures continue to be hampered by the weakness in the housing market- but this is expected to slow by 2015.

The number of new house starts forecasted for 2015 will be 128,000- 28% below a 2007 peak of 179,000, with an indication that the number of households in England will grow to 27.5 million in 2033 at a rate of 232,000 per year.

Fluctuations are also set to continue between the private and public housing sectors as the latter bares the brunt of foreseeable Government spending cuts.

The FMB suggest that small and medium enterprise (SME) backed developments are suffering, with the Government needing to reduce the financial burden on the housebuilding sector to enable vital growth.

Speaking on the challenges of building more SME community housing developments, Mr Berry added: ‘The average cost of building on such sites is some 70% higher than estate housing which is partly to do with economies of scale but also because of the Government persisting with policies that were designed during the housing boom. The result is that the number of SME building companies is at its lowest point for nearly 30 years.’