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Housing statistics
30/05/2012
Updated housing statistics have been released today by Scotland’s Chief Statistician.
Published online, the Housing Statistics for Scotland web pages include comprehensive time series data on housing activity in Scotland. This quarterly release includes updates to information on new house building and local authority house sales up to 31 March 2012 (Q1) for social sector new build and Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP), or 31 December 2011 (Q4) for other quarterly series.
The key points from the data are as follows:
New house building:
All Sectors
- In 2011 Q4 there were 3,435 starts across all sectors bringing the total for 2011 to 13,569, a reduction of 6 per cent compared to the 14,449 starts in 2010;
- There were 4,157 new build completions across all sectors in Q4 2011, a reduction of 9 per cent compared to the same quarter of 2010. There were a total of 15,150 completions in 2011, down 10 per cent from 2010.
Private Sector
- There were 2,829 private sector starts and 2,750 completions in quarter 4 of 2011. This brings the total number of starts for 2011 to 10,132, an increase of 13 per cent when compared to 2010. The total number of completions for 2011 was 9,893, a reduction of 12 per cent compared to 2010.
Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP)
- There were no Housing Association or Council approvals through the AHSP in 2011 Q3 due to the introduction of the Innovation and Investment Fund. This change creates a break in the time series and impacts on the number of starts in 2012 Q1 (1,599) and therefore the total number of starts for the financial year 2011-12 (4,279);
- The total number of completions through the AHSP increased by 31 per cent in Q1 of 2012 compared to the same quarter of 2011 (from 1,893 to 2,479). In total there were 6,882 completions in the financial year 2011-12, a 5 per cent reduction on the previous year.
Housing Association Homes
- There were 2,175 housing association houses started in the financial year 2011-12. These are measured through the AHSP, and therefore the number of starts in 2012 Q1 (637) will have been impacted by the introduction of the Innovation and Investment Fund which meant that there were no approvals in Q3 of 2011.
- The total number of housing association completions in the financial year 2011-12 decreased by 7 per cent compared to total completions in the financial year 2010-11 (from 5,111 to 4,776). There were 1,596 completions in 2012 Q1.
Local Authority Homes
- For local authority new build, there was a decrease of 47 per cent in the number of starts in the financial year 2011-12 (765) compared to 2010-11 (1,443 starts). The number of starts in January – March 2012 will have been impacted by the introduction of the Innovation and Investment Fund which meant that there were no approvals from this fund in July - September 2011. This has impacted on the number of new build starts in subsequent quarters.
- There were 276 local authority completions in 2012 Q1 bringing the total for the 2011-12 financial year to 1,011 – the highest number of local authority completions in a financial year since 1991-92.
Sales of local authority dwellings:
- Sales of local authority dwellings fell by 24 per cent in 2011 compared to 2010 (from 1,583 to 1,206). This continues the declining trend in sales observed over recent years since the introduction of the modernised Right to Buy in 2002. There were 310 sales in 2011 Q4.
Related information:
- The web tables and further information on Housing and Regeneration statistics in Scotland can be accessed through home page for the Housing Statistics for Scotland
- Official statistics are produced by professionally independent statistical staff. More information can be accessed at standards of official statistics in Scotland
- The Housing Statistics for Scotland web tables replaced the quarterly Housing Trends in Scotland bulletins in November 2007. Web tables are updated regularly as new data becomes available.