House building in Shropshire fails to hit pre-crash level
The number of homes being built in Shropshire has still not fully recovered from the collapse of the housing market, new figures have revealed.
Despite suffering a big fall in the number of new homes completed last year, Telford & Wrekin added almost double the number of homes in 2014 than in the year before the credit crunch, but projects in the wider county remain almost 50 per cent behind the number registered in 2007.
Last year, 617 new properties were built in Shropshire Council's area – compared with 503 and 608 in 2008 and 2009, when the market was in the doldrums.
In 2007, before the collapse had fully taken effect, 897 new homes were built in Shropshire Council's area, illustrating the scale of damage to the industry locally.
Last year, the county did achieve its strongest year of building since the crash, and achieved a 17.7 per cent increase in the number of registered properties last year.
In 2014, the number of new homes built in Telford & Wrekin was 796, down from 1,056 in 2013, but well ahead of the 414 achieved in the borough in 2007, and 368 after the impact of the economic crash had taken effect in 2008.
The numbers are revealed in the National House Building Council's latest registration figures, which show the West Midlands is outpacing London in terms of growth in new-build properties, with the 12,241 registered last year representing a 16 per cent rise on 2013.
Surprisingly, detached houses are the most common arrival in Telford & Wrekin, with 258 registered last year, compared with 218 semis, 195 terraces, 91 flats and 34 bungalows.
Detached properties also dominate in Shropshire with 200 registrations, followed by semi-detached homes (171), flats (129), terraces (84), and finally bungalows (33).
NHBC chief executive Mike Quinton said: "It looks like the detached home is making a comeback.
"Following an oversupply of flats outside London over the last decade, the growth in detached homes is restoring balance to the country's housing stock."
Across all types of property, 145,174 new homes across the UK were registered with the NHBC last year, marking a nine per cent increase on 2013 and the highest annual total since 2007 as the economic recovery continues.
