According to new statistics, some of the most scenic locations in America have had large swathes taken up by housing estates.
South Derbyshire has experienced the greatest growth over the last three decades, with 7.3 percent new housing.
South Derbyshire, which has villages dating back to the Domesday Book of 1086, has seen a total of 3,384 new dwellings built in three years, bringing its housing stock up to a total of 46,648.
Chesterfield is a nearby suburb with a housing stock total of 49,998, however it has seen only 576 new build in the three last years.
Salford also saw an impressive 8,533 newly built houses between 2017-2020, which represented 6.9% of its housing stock.
Analysis of government data revealed that South Derbyshire topped the list with 7.3%, which is 7.3% higher than the national average at 2.6 percent.
Salford is home to a brand new housing community: 6.9% of Salford’s residences were built after 2017. There have been 8,533 property additions in the last three year.
The figures from England indicate that there are nearly 25 million homes, of which 630,000 have been built over the past three-years.
It means 2.6 percent of all homes have been built in the last three years – but some areas have faced building at almost three times this rate while others have seen just a tiny fraction of new development added to their housing stock.
MyJobQuote carried out the research. It analysed the number of houses built in 2017, or after, and broke down these figures by area.
| English Council Areas | Construction of new buildings (2017-2020) |
Construction of new buildings A percentage Housing total Stock |
|---|---|---|
| South Derbyshire | 3,384 | 7.3 |
| Salford | 8,533 | 6.9 |
| Vale of White Horse | 4,094 | 6.8 |
| London, Newham | 7,805 | 6.5 |
| Tower Hamlets in London | 7,947 | 6.3 |
| Stratford-on-Avon | 3,945 | 6.3 |
| Wokingham | 4,255 | 6.1 |
| Daventry | 2,094 | 5.7 |
| South Oxfordshire | 3,576 | 5.6 |
| Cherwell | 3,686 | 5.4 |
| Eastleigh | 3,209 | 5.4 |
| Tewkesbury | 2,288 | 5.4 |
| Aylesbury Vale | 4,468 | 5.3 |
| Greenwich (London) | 6,261 | 5.3 |
The house is one of 3384 South Derbyshire homes built in 2017 to 2020.
In addition to Shakespeare’s birthplace Stratford-on-Avon and the Vale of White Horse in Oxfordshire, other idyllic locations have witnessed thousands of new homes being built over the last three-years.
In recent years, new build rates have been much higher than national average in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire.
The smallest increases in housing stock were seen by seaside cities like Portsmouth (0.5%), Brighton and Hove (0.6%), Southend-on-Sea (9.9%), and Torbay (1.1%).
Stratford-upon-Avon (pictured), the birth and final resting place of William Shakespeare, ranks sixth in England for most new builds, with 3,945 put up in the last three years – representing 6.3 percent of the area’s total housing stock
An aerial view of Salford displays a new build housing estate – a drop in the ocean when compared with the 8,533 dwellings erected over the past three years
Campaigners for the Countryside complain that rural areas are being targeted for development when brownfields and urban areas have to bear more of the responsibility for housing.
Greenfields are preferred by developers because they can be built on quickly, critics claim.
Paul Miner (head of land use planning and development at CPRE), the charity for rural areas, stated that ‘Planning using formulas simply does not work. We know from painful experience what a developer-led planning system will create – the wrong types of homes in the wrong places.
“This is another example of how the government’s plans to reform the planning system will greatly increase pressure on green space in the south and Green Belt to the north, leaving brownfield, previously developed land in our cities and northern towns to rot.
But it isn’t too late to ask the government for a rethink of the planning changes that will place the needs and interests of people and the environment at the core, as well as new policies. It will be impossible to keep going with the same old business practices in spite of any upward trend.
South Derbyshire Council was the England region with the greatest number of new build homes. They adopted a Local Green Spaces Plan on 24 September 2020.
The council website states that the Local Green Spaces Plan is a plan to protect land from development.
“The Plan together with the other parts of the development plan will be used for development guidance through the determination and submission of planning applications within the District.
The Salford City Council draft local plan states that: “The size of Salford’s housing and employment needs means that there are some modifications to the Green Belt boundaries. However, these were minimized to the extent possible. The plan also includes new Green Belt areas.