South Derbyshire tops number of new builds across England

South Derbyshire tops the table in new research comparing data on new builds completed over the past decade and what proportion of total dwellings they account for.

Development site sourcing specialists, Searchland, completed the research to demonstrate where the greatest degree of new housing stock is being created.

Across South Derbyshire, properties built in the past 10 years make up 17% of overall housing stock, far higher than the English average of 6%.

Other areas with a plentiful supply of new property are Harborough in Leicestershire (14.9%), Dartford in Kent (14.9%) and Stratford-upon-Avon (14.8%).

In other regions, new builds are having less of an impact, which analysts say could be due to several reasons including a lack of space, political initiative and/or nimbyism from existing homeowners.

Places where new build completions make up the lowest percentage of housing stock in England are Brighton and Hove (1.2%), Adur in West Sussex (1.4%) and Kingston upon Thames in south-west London (1.5%).

Wiltshire has produced the most new build dwellings in the past decade across England with 22,100 new homes being built in the local authority area in the past 10 years, bolstering overall stock to 228,000.

In second place is North Yorkshire, at 21,300, bringing stock to 302,500.

Then comes Somerset, which added 20,540 homes bringing their total up to 267,400.

At the other end of the scale is the City of London (350), Adur in Sussex (390) and Hastings (690).

Regionally, the south-west has welcomed the highest number of new stock in the past decade, at 7% of the total amount. East Midlands and east England, both 6.8%, are next, with Yorkshire and The Humber at 5% and the north-west at 5%.

Co-founder and CEO of Searchland, Mitchell Fasanya, said: “It takes time to build up new communities, but areas like South Derbyshire, Harborough and Dartford are racing to prominence with a raft of new properties.

“Modern stock tends to be more energy efficient than older fare, which is helpful in keeping bills down. For aspiring landlords, you’ll also need to have an EPC level above C to let out a property from 2028, so it’s becoming more important than ever to have a greener property.

“New builds tend to cost something of a premium, but if you’re a second or third buyer of a modern property you may be able to avoid that downside altogether.

“At the other end of the spectrum are areas like Brighton, where just 1.2% of its stock is less than 10 years old. Clearly more needs to be done to build homes in these places, as without new stock there’s more of a likelihood that demand will run away from supply and make areas more expensive.

“Depending on the types of homes being built, they can enhance a region with new architecture that sits neatly alongside historic infrastructure. That’s clearly the view that’s being taken in Stratford-upon-Avon, which demonstrates that new and old properties can coexist, bringing more residents and economic activity to an area.”

Searchland’s data can be found here.