Andy Sommerville, Director at Search Acumen, comments:

“Housebuilding continued steadily as we ended 2018, with no change in new build dwelling and a 1% increase in completions year on year. We’ve made considerable progress compared to five years ago, however there is still progress to be made towards reaching the house-building highs we experienced before the financial crisis.

“New builds are a promising development, but as last year’s Letwin Review showed us, the problems the property sector has faced didn’t necessarily come from us building too little homes – it’s that we aren’t building the right homes, in the right places, for the right people.

“We’re hoping that the planning reforms that the Treasury announced in the Spring Statement will address some of these issues as the industry seeks avenues to make it easier to build more homes on more land.

“Through the provision of accurate and reliable data, local authorities will be able to unlock land and develop new and attractive homes for a variety of income brackets. Going into 2019, it is now important that we improve data accessibility and keep our foot on the gas.”