The number of new homes built in the past year hit a decade high as the government edged closer to its goal of delivering 300,000 annually in England, according to official figures.
A total of 222,190 net additional dwellings were created in the year to March, a 2% increase on 2016-17. It was the most delivered in a year since 2007-08.
Increasing the supply of homes is one of the government’s central policy goals. In 2015, it pledged to build a million by 2020 and extended the Help to Buy scheme beyond 2021 in last month’s budget to help to meet the target. Having delivered 629,000 in the past three years, the Home Builders Federation said that the industry was “on track to smash the target” of a million new homes.
