Construction activity in four regional UK cities is at a record high, according to accounting firm Deloitte. One of the cities they highlight is Manchester, which we featured in a recent Advantage blog post, reporting that: “house building rates in Manchester have doubled, hitting their highest levels since 2006.”

Deloitte stated that there had been sustained or increased building activity in Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester and Belfast across sectors including offices, hotels, retail, education and student housing.

“To have construction figures this healthy is somewhat of a surprise given a myriad of market uncertainties,” Deloitte Real Estate partner and regional head Simon Bedford said.

The Telegraph reported that Manchester and Birmingham, in particular, are leading the way in terms of a construction boom in regional cities, adding: “In Birmingham, the amount of office space under construction has increased by 50pc since last year, from 969,000 sq ft to 1.4m sq ft – the highest level of activity since the (Deloitte) report began in 2002.” You can read our recent feature on Birmingham’s house building boom (with insights from our Birmingham office) here.

However, despite these encouraging figures, it has still been reported that targets for new homes are likely to be missed by half of England’s local authorities (according to a National Audit Office report).

Here at Advantage, we’ve been well placed to respond to the upturn in construction levels in Manchester and Birmingham as we have nearby offices in Warrington and Tamworth with highly trained surveyors on hand to support our clients at every stage of the development process. We’ve also been expanding our team to meet the rising level of demand for latent defects insurance.

Over the coming months, we’ll continue to keep a keen eye on emerging UK property trends, and will be writing about how much progress is being made towards meeting the nation’s ambitious housebuilding targets.

In the meantime, we’ll leave you with just one more statistic! As reported in the press this week, the number of new homes registered with the National House-Building Council (NHBC) was up 9% in January 2019 compared to January 2018. (out of a total of 12,677 new homes, 8,931 were registered in the private sector (9,214 in 2018), with 3,746 in the affordable sector (2,469 in 2018)).

Look out for the latest property and construction insurance news on our news page. To contact our Birmingham, Warrington or London office, call: 0845 900 3969 or email: sales@ahci.co.uk