Off the wire
• More than half of refugees leave Latvia after receiving protection: Red Cross  • Belarus president to visit Pakistan in October to expand trade relations  • Zika may persist in vagina for days: study  • Macedonia, Greece FMs agree to build confidence, expand cooperation  • Feature: Black faces to go as folk dancers catch up with 21st century  • LME base metals decrease on Thursday  • Urgent: Nearly 5,000 people to evacuate besieged Damascus' town under fresh deal  • U.S., Saudi plan to revive Yemeni talks  • Senegal becomes 50th state to accede to Data Protection Convention  • UN speaks with Italian president over powerful earthquake  
You are here: 　 Home

House building in England up 6 pct in drive for mln new homes

Xinhua, August 26, 2016 Adjust font size:

The British government's drive to see a million homes built across the country was given a boost Thursday when new figures showed a six-percent increase in house building in the past year.

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) said the latest data showed 139,030 new homes were completed in England in the year to June 2016, with figures continuing to grow gradually over the past few years.

The figures show strong regional growth in house building in London, Swindon and Wakefield, said DCLG.

"Delivery in London saw 24 percent more homes being built in the year to June 2016 than the previous year with local London authorities in Greenwich and Waltham Forest seeing completions soar 126 percent and 103 percent respectively over the same period," said a department spokesman.

In the English provinces, the towns of Swindon and Wakefield saw completions going up 104 percent and 41 percent respectively in the year to June 2016.

Meanwhile, new figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders showed there are more first-time house buyers than at any time since 2007, with 72,800 in England in the second quarter of 2016.

Government Communities Secretary Sajid Javid said: "This is real progress but there is much more to do. That's why we are going further and increasing our investment in house building to ensure many more people can benefit."

The DCLG spokesman added: "The government is committed to building the homes this country needs and investing 8.0 billion pounds (10.55 billion U.S. dollars) to build 400,000 more affordable homes to rent and buy." Endit