Just 6,679 residential schemes of 25 units or less were completed last year

Planning Houses

The number of small housing projects in the UK has plummeted by almost half in two years, according to exclusive data shared with Building.

Just 6,679 residential schemes of 25 units or less were completed last year, down 43% on 11,811 in 2013, according to figures provided by data company Barbour ABI and consultant the Fiscal Incentives Group.

The proportion of all housing schemes completed last year that were 25 units or less - at 6% - was half the level in 2013, at 12%.

Ben de Waal, director at the Fiscal Incentives Group and a former Aecom housing boss, warned the sharp drop off in small housing schemes indicated SME housebuilders may be ill-equipped to deliver the government’s plans to redevelop thousands of brownfield sites across the country, which tend to be small urban in-fill sites.

De Waal called for greater tax incentives for housebuilders to redevelop brownfield sites: “The statistics seem to suggest that interest in developing these sites is significantly reducing. The government needs to provide improved incentives if it is going to deliver on its brownfield amibitions.”