Quarter 1 New Home Registrations Reach Five Year High

First quarter data from the National House-Building Council (NHBC) has shown that new home registrations are up 22% over 2012.

This positive picture is widely spread across England & Wales; however Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man have seen negative growth to the tune of 3.67%, 8.58% and 31.58% respectively. Taken alone, England posted some even healthier numbers with every single region posting positive growth.

This positive growth isn’t entirely isolated to London and the South East as some might expect, in fact, without London, the South East saw the most anaemic growth rate at only 0.46%. Merseyside saw the largest percentage gain at 74.25% from a relatively low base of only 369 new registrations in 2012. There are early signs that this increase may continue through 2013 and into 2014 with several large-scale social housing developments being announced in the past few weeks.

Other large percentage changes were seen in East & West Midlands (32.60% & 44.38% respectively) and in the Eastern region (28.76%). Even here in the South West, where a regional housing shortage was nationally publicised even before the recession hit in 2008, an increase of 5.98% was seen.

Steve Catt, NHBC Director for England said:

"This year’s Q1 figures were buoyed by the Government’s £2.2billion Affordable Homes Programme which aims to deliver 170,000 new homes by April 2015; the figures also show that current Government schemes such as NewBuy and Funding for Lending are now helping to boost the industry, while the landmark Battersea Power Station redevelopment also contributed over 800 new registrations.The under supply of new homes is still clearly a huge issue for the industry but this promising start to 2013 certainly gives the sector reason to be optimistic for the year ahead."

Outside of England, Wales saw a very healthy increase of 20.16% in new house registrations. Peter Watton, NHBC Director for Wales said:

“This noticeable increase can be attributed to the completion of a number of stalled sites across the country over the last few months being replaced by new sites. These signs of growth in various regions indicate that this promising start of the year can be maintained.”

The negative growth seen outside of England and Wales was met with a positive spin. Neil Jefferson, Director of the NHBC Foundation said:

“In Northern Ireland, a market that was particularly badly hit in the financial crisis, people are feeling better about site visits and sales...We are seeing a sustained increase in the intention to build. Builders are getting more confident.”

Overall there is much to be positive about. A general return of confidence is a good sign that the industry has turned a corner and is heading back to the level of building seen at the beginning of 2007.

At Duchy Timber we are seeing a very similar level of growth and can see the remainder of 2013 continue to grow at a similar rate. A good thing too as the Future Homes Commission, set up by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), has said the country needs 300,000 new homes annually. In recent years, the house building industry got closest to this target in 2007 when it built approximately 200,000 homes. Last year the total number of registrations was 104,514.

Grown in Britain will Bring Commitment to ‘Buy British Wood Products’

The majority of Duchy Timber's garden furniture is made from British Timber grown within 100miles of our sawmill in Mid-Cornwall.

Last week the Chief Executive of the Confederation of Forest Industries (Confor) launched an exciting new programme to strengthen the supply chain and promote the use of British timber more widely.

The need for the Grown in Britain programme was identified in last year’s Independent Panel on Forestry and their Final Report in July 2012. It said:

“Recommendation 18: We urge Government, woodland owners and businesses to seize the opportunity provided by woodlands to grow our green economy by strengthening the supply chain, and promoting the use of wood more widely across our society and economy. These and other actions should be set out in a Wood Industry Action Plan.”

Supported by Defra, The Forestry Commission, Confor, the Building Research Establishment (BRE), the Institute of Chartered Foresters (ICF), along with several major civil engineering firms and retailers, the programme gathered 50 of the supporting organisations together last Friday in London.

Confor Chief Executive Stuart Goodall said:

“We wanted to get these industry customers to express their commitment to Grown in Britain and buying British wood products, so the business in the supply chain can take that on board and start to consider what they can do to bring more products to the market,”

At Duchy Timber, we have made a conscious effort to source the best timber from within the Southwest region. We have cultivated excellent working relationships with harvesting contractors and landowners alike to ensure that our first-rate supply is maintained and that these partners in the supply chain are assured of our capacity and our on-going development.

A Grown in Britain week will be held on October 14th – 20th, with timber industry supply chain companies encouraged to open their doors to their communities to educate and enthuse them about the benefits and environmental credentials of wood products. This forms part of a key focus of Grown in Britain - creating a wood and forestry culture amongst the British general public. At Duchy Timber we plan to participate in the Grown in Britain week by having an open day on Saturday 19th October. Further details will follow in the next few months.

Part of the programme’s on-going support for the industry will see Stuart Goodall chair a ‘supply side’ panel consisting of timber processors, woodland owners and managers, forestry trade associations and partnerships in a position to change how woodland management is perceived by land owners, consumers and other parts of society. This group will ‘translate’ the requirements of the demand side panel into action in our forests and woodlands.

I’m sure that the rest of the industry shares Duchy Timber’s enthusiasm for this new programme. We will keep a close eye on future developments and hope that the programme makes some great progress in the coming months.