The number of homes being built in London is at an historic high, according to EGi’s London Residential Market Analysis.
Completions, starts, planning applications and schemes with planning are all at peak levels in the capital, despite concerns about the high price of land and limited availability of skilled labour slowing the market.
The research says that construction started on 28,787 homes in London in 2015, a rise of 16% on the year before, and an increase of 67% on the 2007 peak of 17,241.
A further 19,688 homes were completed, a 22.3% rise on the 16,095 homes finished during the 2008 peak.
According to Nigel Evans, head of London Residential Research, there has been a step change in housing provision in a number of areas. Where previously one core region would have been seen, now there are 10.
“A walk along Waterloo Bridge at night may give you some idea of what is going on. Whether you look east or west you will see a sky punctuated with the red lights of cranes,” he said.
There are thousands of homes being built and in the pipeline in key areas such as Battersea Nine Elms, SW8, Canary Wharf, E14, the Royal Docks, E16, and Greenwich Peninsula, SE10, generally with very little phasing.
Although numbers have been increasing across the capital, the strongest growth continues to come
from the outer boroughs, where there
has been an emphasis on development prompted by affordability constraints.
But the research showed that it was east London where the lion’s share of development was set to happen. There are 72,482 homes with planning permission to the east, compared with 46,971 in the west, and accounting for 39% of the 184,289 homes with permission.
The shift east has been driven by large amounts of available and relatively cheap land, improving transport connections, and the critical mass effect of more schemes getting the go-ahead.
However, Evans said there was also an unseen element that was “boosting construction just as towers have done but at the opposite end of the residential spectrum”.
“Of the 28,787 starts in 2015, 6,600 were as a result of permitted development rights, equating to some 23% of the new construction start pipeline,” he said.
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