BELFAST isn't providing anywhere near enough homes to meet current needs, building as few as one new house for every 23 new residents, research reveals.
Indeed the northern capital is, by quite some distance, the worst city in the UK for new home development, according to analysis by Minerva Lending, a listed property bond which provides loans used by developers to convert offices into homes.
Belfast's population increased by 21 per cent, or 58,617 people between 2011 and 2016, Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures confirm.
But it can't keep pace with the expansion, because over the same period just 2,585 new properties were built - a fraction of those needed to maintain the status quo.
In percentage terms Belfast had the greatest imbalance with a 1:23 ration, because next on the list were the commuter town of Luton and city of Manchester, where one home is built for every eight people.
London ranks sixth as the UK's fastest growing city, with its population expanding by 7.5 per cent, or 613,951 people, between 2011 and 2016.
But again, property development is lagging sharply behind with just 124,020 new homes built over the entire five-year period — one for every five new inhabitants.
Ross Andrews, director of Minerva Lending, said: “We’ve known for years that the UK's housing supply situation is poor, but this road to ruin of inadequate building is going to end the dream of home ownership for many millions of people over the next 20 years.
“One in 200 people is reportedly already homeless. That is already a national emergency that will only be exacerbated if the government does not deliver a housing strategy that works soon."
He insisted the Chancellor, in his Budget next week, should consider extreme measures to boost building "before the housing crisis we all recognise spirals further out of control".
He added: “Much is made of the number of long-term empty homes, but figures showing the amount of unused commercial office space going to waste are much harder to come by.
“Light-touch planning permission for office-to-residential conversions is having a growing impact on the sector but it can only be one ingredient in a solution capable of defeating a problem as big as a broken housing market exacerbated by the cyclical nature of housebuilding.”
