Starts and completions have now dropped in three successive quarters

Housebuilding starts and completions both continued their decline in the final months of last year, official figures show.

Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLHC) data, compiled from building control numbers, showed the number of homes completed in England between October and December 2021 was 11% down on the same quarter in 2020.

The total number of dwellings finished in this period was 41,330, which was also 4% lower than the previous quarter, seasonally adjusted.

Building work was started on 41,600 sites in the last three months of 2021, which was a 3% decrease on both the prior quarter and on the fourth quarter in the previous year.

housing data

Source: Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities

DLHC estimates that building control data accounts for roughly 80% of housebuilding undertaken in England, but the figures are seen as reliable indicators of trends in housebuilding rates.

Starts and completions now have declined in three successive quarters, having risen up to the first quarter of 2021.