The number of new homes built in England and Wales in 2009/10 will slump to the lowest level since 1923 – fuelling fears that a chronic shortage of housing will leave millions of people trapped in overcrowded and substandard housing for a generation to come, the National Housing Federation has warned.
The NHF has forecast that house-builders are on course to build just 122,700 homes between April 2009-March 2010, 18,000 fewer than were built over the previous financial year, as a result of private developers scaling back developments following the onset of the recession.
The house-building figures for 2009/10 will be the lowest total since 1923/4, when just 86,000 homes were built, if the war years are excluded. It will be the second successive year that numbers have fallen significantly, after 2008/9 saw only 140,950 homes built, compared to 176,660 the year before.













