South Norfolk marches ahead with new home builds

South Norfolk led the drive to build houses in the county between April 2017 and March 2018, with 1,180 new homes completed.

Almost 3,000 new homes were completed in Norfolk as a whole, with the figures for South Norfolk representing a 33 per cent rise on the previous year.

According the ministry for housing, communities and local government, the growth rate is higher than the average for England, where new house building activity has risen by 8.5 per cent since the period 2016 to 2017.

Private developers in South Norfolk built most of the new residential homes – about 81 per cent, with the rest built by housing associations.

The Government wants to see 30,000 houses built in the UK every year.

Great Yarmouth and West Norfolk also saw more homes completed in 2017/18, while the number of homes completed fell in Norwich, Broadland, North Norfolk and Breckland. Norwich was down eight per cent, with 120 new homes finished.

In Broadland, about 490 new homes were built, 34 per cent fewer than the year before. There were 390 new homes in Breckland, 29 per cent fewer, and in North Norfolk there was a fall of three per cent, with 290 new homes completed. Waveney saw a 38 per cent increase, with 220 new homes.

“With Norwich itself being to all intents built-up, it is inevitable that new construction will occur in the surrounding suburban areas such as Cringleford and Poringland,” said Mike Bootman, chairman of the Diss and District Neighbourhood planning group.

“The neighbourhood plan steering group, in its response to the GNLP consultation, did comment that not all housing growth should be sited in the Greater Norwich conurbation, but that sufficient should be distributed in such a way that will not just sustain but will improve the viability of the market towns and the smaller settlements in the rural areas.”