Fewer houses have been built in the past decade than any since World War Two, figures reveal

With one year to go, an average of just 130,000 new homes have been built each year in England during the 2010s.

This is well below the 147,000 annual new builds in the 2000s or 150,000 of the 1990s and half the level in the 1960s and 1970s.

The figures are even worse when population size is factored in, according to an analysis by the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) think tank.

The figures for the 2010s are the equivalent to just one home for every 43 people – compared to one for every 14 people in the 1960s.

But the rate of new homes built has started to rise – with 148,360 completed in 2016/17 and supply reaching more than 220,000 last year – the highest level in all but one of the last 31 years.

The number of conversions of existing properties also improve the figures slightly,but the total of net additional dwellings is likely to still be the lower this decade than the last.

The pattern is broadly similar across the UK as a whole, with householding falling form a peak of 3.6 million new units in the 1960s to 1.9 million in the 1990s and 2000s.

And with just a year to go until the end of the decade, the 2010s has seen just 1,089,190 new homes built.

CPS director Robert Colvile warned: “The housing crisis is blighting the lives of a generation, and robbing them of the dream of home ownership.

“But as this analysis shows, this is not just the consequence of the financial crisis – it is part of a pattern stretching back half a century, in which we have steadily built fewer and fewer new homes.

“The Government has rightly promised to focus on this issue, and there are encouraging signs that housebuilding is picking up.

“But ministers need to take bold action in 2019 to ensure that the 2020s become the decade in which we break this hugely damaging cycle.”

A government spokesperson said: “More than 222,000 homes were delivered in 2017-18, the highest level in all but one of the last 31 years – and we have set out an ambitious package of measures to help build 300,000 properties a year by the mid-2020s.

“This includes over £44 billion investment, rewriting the planning rules and giving local authorities the power to build a new generation of council houses.

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