MORE new homes are being built in the West Midlands than at any time since 2007.

New house building figures released by the National Housing Building Council show new home registrations in the area from July to September were 3,848 compared with 2,551 in the same period last year. The national figures for the third quarter of 2014 reveal overall new home registrations have increased eight per cent on the same period last year with the private sector continuing to be the main driver of growth. These figures represent the highest year to date totals and the highest figures since 2007.

NHBC’s chief executive Mike Quinton said: “We are very encouraged to see that house building is again beginning to show signs of accelerated growth across the UK. Following the dramatic growth in 2013, we saw a period of consolidation in the first half of this year, but our latest data would suggest that the pace of growth is picking up again.

“Our figures show that the sharp housing upturn we have seen over the last couple of years is a genuine broad-based recovery across the whole of the country, with pockets of strong growth in the North East, Yorkshire & Humberside and West Midlands. It is now increasingly apparent that housing growth is no longer London and South-East centric, with these regions beginning to show signs of cooling.

“However we must not lose sight of the fact that the UK still has a chronic shortage of new homes. We have seen over recent weeks that all the main political parties regard housing as an ongoing key issue, reinforcing the fact that the country urgently needs more high quality and affordable new homes.”

In total, 36,343 new homes were registered with NHBC between July and September this year (28,468 private sector; 7,875 public sector), compared with 33,573 (24,984 private sector; 8,589 public sector) for the same period in 2013. This represents a 14% increase for the private sector, with the public sector still under-performing when compared to last year’s figures. However, NHBC anticipates public sector registrations will begin to grow again as the next phase of the Government’s Affordable Housing Programme has recently been allocated.