Welcome for house figures

The house-building industry is expressing cautious optimism over the latest NHBC figures which reveal that the number of private new house starts in August compared to a year ago is five per cent lower than in July.

August is showing a two per cent increase on August 1995 with 10,898 houses built compared to 10,634 a year ago. July's figures were particularly buoyant showing a 7 per cent increase in new housing starts compared to a year earlier.

The news is gloomier for the public sector with the total number of new housing starts for last month standing at 12,461 compared to 12,437 in August 1995, showing a fall in public sector starts from 1,803 in August 1995 to 1,563 in August 1996.

John Stewart, independent economist and economic adviser to the HBF, said: "The increase in the private sector figures is still there but it's not as strongly positive as it was in July. Nevertheless the statistics are much better than earlier this year. Unfortunately the public sector is still looking gloomy, partly because of the squeeze on housing association budgets from earlier cuts now filtering through.

"Overall we mustn't get carried away yet because we need three or four months of good figures before we are out of the woods."

A spokesman for the NHBC said: "The private sector house starts for August are not a boom but they're certainly better than for a long time. August has always been a quiet month for housing anyway so we will be looking with interest at September and October's figures."

l The latest figures from the Department of the Environment indicates a 6.3 per cent year on year increase in starts in July. The figure includes both public and private sectors.