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Housing Statistics for Scotland - New House Building

Ruchill housing

New House Building in Scotland

  • Historic trends in new build showed peaks in the early 1950s and late 1960s resulting primarily from programmes of post-war reconstruction and slum clearances.
  • From a high point of about 41,000-43,000 completions a year, mainly in the public sector, the level of new build fell during the early 80s to under 20,000 completions per year.
  • Since then, there has been an overall upward trend which peaked in 2004-5 at 26,500 completions. However, completions for 2008-9 were 21,400, a decrease of 17% on the previous year. The latest quarter (April-June 2009) shows a 22% decrease on the same quarter in 2008.
  • The number of starts decreased in the latest year, by 26% from 26,900 in 2007-8 to 20,000 in 2008-9. In the latest quarter starts were 55% lower than in the same quarter the previous year.
  • Construction of new council housing has been increasing over the last three years. In the latest four quarter period (to end-September 2009) 402 homes were completed, four times higher than in the preceding four quarters. 379 new homes were started in this time.

Local Authority Tables

  • All sectors starts and completions
    Quarterly, financial year and calendar year time series of starts and completions by all agencies, by local authority area - from 1996 quarter 2 to 2009 quarter 2 (Apr-Jun).
  • Private sector starts and completions
    Quarterly, financial year and calendar year time series of private sector starts and completions, by local authority area - from 1986 quarter 1 to 2009 quarter 2 (Apr-Jun).
  • Local authority starts and completions
    Quarterly, financial year and calendar year time series of local authority starts and completions, by local authority area - from 1986 quarter 1 to 2009 quarter 3 (Jul-Sept).
  • Housing association starts and completions
    Quarterly, financial year and calendar year time series of housing association starts and completions, by local authority area - from 1992 quarter 2 to 2009 quarter 3 (Jul-Sept).
  • Greenfield / brownfield completions for private sector new build
    Information on the type of site has been collected since around 2001, but coverage is not yet complete. These tables show the proportion of private sector new build completions where the site type is known, and of those, the proportion of completions on brownfield or greenfield sites.
  • New build completion rates
    All sector new build completion rates - per 1000 households and per 1000 population, by financial year


Note: In all new build tables, starts and completions in the former New Towns are included in the appropriate district figures.

Scotland Tables

Scotland Tables

  • Summary tables of new house building in Scotland
    Quarterly time series data on Scottish starts and completions by sector from 1980 to 2009 Quarter 2 (April - June) for private new build, social sector new build, plus annual figures on completions by sector, back to 1920.
  • NEW Affordable Housing Investment Programme Summary Tables
    Financial year and quarterly time series tables of approvals and completions funded by the Affordable Housing Investment Programme. These tables show new affordable housing provision through new build, off the shelf purchases and rehabilitations.

The Affordable Housing Investment Programme (AHIP) Out-turn Report for 2008-09 provides background data to the data on AHIP published in the Housing Statistics for Scotland publication in May.

The background data are based on management information and differ slightly from the official statistics due to statistical adjustments carried out on the latter to ensure consistency across different measures and across time. There are differences in the data extraction dates and statistical adjustments are made to figures received on the Devanaha development. Information on any adjustments to the management information for statistical purposes will be included in the explanatory notes and the footnotes to these statistical publications.

It should also be noted that the background data includes additional information, including data on expenditure, which is not included in the official statistics(above). The process for publishing background data to official statistics is currently under review and new procedures will be confirmed shortly.

Supply of new housing in Scotland

Data on housing supply informs National Indicator 32 (Increase the rate of new house building) in the Scottish Government's 2007 Spending Review, and comprises the following elements:

  • new house building: houses completed by or for housing associations, local authorities or private developers for below market rent or low cost home ownership; houses completed for market sale by private developers.
  • refurbishment: houses acquired by housing associations and refurbished either for rent or low cost home ownership. Refurbishment of private dwellings funded wholly or partly through the Affordable Housing Investment Programme.
  • conversion: new dwellings created by conversion from non-housing to housing use.

Link to new housing supply table

Background information on this indicator can be found on the Scotland Performs web pages

Page updated: Thursday, November 26, 2009