Northern Powerhouse cities leading housing boom

Cities in the north are at the epicentre of a nationwide construction boom with more than 9,000 new development plans applied for in Manchester alone during the last three years, according to a new study.

The report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research and commisioned by the Royal Mail claims Manchester has applied for the most new development plans in the country, closely followed by Leeds, Wigan and Liverpool.

Using information from the Royal Mail’s database of addresses that have not been built yet, it also found Tower Hamlets is officially the nation’s fastest-growing ‘housing hotspot’, with a 14% upturn in the number of new homes being registered between 2010 and 2017.

The report also singled out Cornwall as the local authority area with the largest amount of new homes built in the last five years, with 17,450 homes built in the last seven years.

And Birmingham, Edinburgh, Tower Hamlets and Wiltshire local authorities have seen a particularly high surge in development plans in the last three years, with on average 8,303 new developments per area.

It also claimed annual construction output in Great Britain has increased by more than 50% in the last five years, and trebled in the last twenty and flats now account for nearly a quarter of housing in the UK.

Outside of London, many towns on the south coast, including Brighton & Hove and Bournemouth, now see flats make up half of their overall property count.

‘As we deliver to over 30 million addresses across the UK, our ‘Not Yet Built’ database is notified of any new building developments – either business or residential.

‘I hope we’ll be delivering to most – if not all – of these fledgling properties in years to come,’ said the Royal Mail’s head of address management unit, Steve Rooney.

The Northern Powerhouse Partnership vice chair, Lord Jim O’Neill, added: ‘It has been clear for some time that parts of the Northern Powerhouse, in particular the North West, are actually doing far better than people seem to think; even outperforming London in some areas.

‘This is welcome news. The unique aspect of the Northern Powerhouse, and why it is so crucial in rebalancing the economy, is that its towns and cities are close enough to create a true single market which can have a significant national impact.’

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