London new home starts slump 59% as safety regime bites

Contemporary figures from the NHBC present registrations throughout the UK rose 4% in Q2 in comparison with a 12 months earlier.

However this masked sharp regional contrasts, with the capital struggling a 59% fall as builders and housing associations wrestle with delays linked to the Constructing Security Regulator and tightening social housing budgets.

The UK’s largest guarantee supplier stated a complete of 30,405 new houses had been registered in Q2 2025, up from 29,103 in the identical interval final 12 months and barely above Q1’s whole.

However London was the standout laggard, recording the steepest drop of any area to 904 houses because the post-Grenfell high-rise security regime continues to dent supply and confidence in high-rise schemes.

The opposite large regional excessive rise market North West and Merseyside was down 18% at simply over 2000 houses.

New flats registrations throughout the UK had been down 23% year-on-year, with the NHBC pointing to a transparent shift in developer focus in the direction of low-rise houses. Terraced home registrations jumped 33%, whereas indifferent and semi-detached houses additionally noticed features of seven% and 5% respectively.

The rental and reasonably priced sector noticed only a 1% annual rise, with 9,481 houses registered in Q2.

Quarter-on-quarter development was extra promising at 6%, pushed partly by contemporary optimism from the Chancellor’s current £39bn pledge for social and reasonably priced housing over the following decade.

Steve Wooden, NHBC chief govt, stated: “Whereas some areas of the market stay subdued, we stay optimistic concerning the longer-term as planning and land restraints are more and more unblocked, mortgage charges ease and the Authorities sustains a give attention to new residence supply.”

Exterior of London, a number of areas noticed robust registration development, together with Yorkshire and Humberside (+96%), the South West (+75%) and Northern Eire (+44%).