According to the latest Homes England figures, new houses starting on site fell by six per cent compared to the same period last year, while completions decreased by 12 per cent year-on-year.
Homes England attributed it to the “impact of tough economic conditions on the housebuilding industry”.
It added that the fall in completion was also due to the closure of the Affordable Homes Guarantees, Care and Support Specialised Housing, Empty Homes and Shared Ownership Affordable Homes Programme 2016-21,
The company said over three quarters of starts were for affordable homes, which is up three per cent on the same period last year.
The report noted that around 21 per cent of affordable housing starts on site were delivered in the North West, followed by 18 per cent in the South East and 12 per cent in the East of England.
Yorkshire and the Humber was the lowest at eight per cent, with the East Midlands coming to nine per cent and North East pegged at 10 per cent.
On the completions side, around 23 per cent of affordable housing completions were in the North West, followed by South East at 20 per cent and West Midlands at 13 per cent.
The lowest proportion of completions occurred in the North East at six per cent, East Midlands and the Yorkshire and the Humber at eight per cent respectively.
The report continued that shared ownership and affordable homes programme was on track to exceed its target of 130,000 new affordable homes, with 126,800 starts by the end of March this year and further 5,000 expected to start delivery in 2023 to 2024.
Homes England added that around 4,793 affordable homes started in this period were for affordable rent, with 3,921 attributed to shared ownership and Rent to Buy.
Of completions, around 10,250 were for affordable rent, a fall of 27 per cent on the prior year and 9,336 under intermediate affordable housing schemes.
The report added that there were around 743 First Homes completions completed in 2022 to 2023.
Homes England’s chief executive Peter Denton said: “The success of the Shared Ownership and Affordable Housing Programme 2016-21 is testament to the drive, ambition and resilience of our delivery partners to build their pipelines in the face of unprecedented barriers, and create over 130,000 new, quality affordable homes for families across the country.
“It is also encouraging to see an increase in the number of affordable homes starting on site in 2022-23, thanks in no small part to partners maintaining momentum through early site identification and strong delivery pipelines.”
He continued: “However, the wider statistics released today reflect the delivery challenges faced by the housebuilding sector over the past year.
“Affordable housing providers experienced a perfect storm of build cost inflation, rising labour costs, material availability, building remediation issues and the duty to support tenants through a cost-of-living crisis, all of which hindered investment in new homes, leading to stalled or stopped schemes.”
Denton concluded: “We will continue to work closely with our partners and DLUHC to apply all our tools, capital and capacity to support delivery of the quality new affordable homes the country needs, in the places that people are proud to call home.”
