23 MAR, 2017
Manchester’s population is currently growing almost 15 times faster than properties are being built, official figures have now revealed.
As Manchester Evening News reported, the extreme situation is a result of stagnating levels of house building and a growing population, meaning the current situation will only get worse over the next five years.
The latest figures showed that between 2015 and 2016 only 290 homes were built in Manchester’s city centre. This means Manchester housing merely grew by 0.13% over the same period of time.
When compared to Manchester’s population growth, the reality of the situation becomes even more clear. Between mid-2014 and mid-2015, the city population increased by more than 10,000 people.
As a result, this means that in 2015 more than 530,000 people were living in the city, a growth of 1.94%.
The high growth rate included both, more births than deaths and immigration, and means that housebuilding in the North’s capital is falling drastically short.
The report went on, revealing that Manchester’s housing shortage is actually one of the biggest one in the whole of England. The situation doesn’t change dramatically when looking outside of Manchester’s city centre. Oldham’s population rose five times faster than the number of dwellings being built, and Salford and Stockport had a population increase three times higher than their build rate.
Across England, house building rates only fell slightly behind population growth, with an increase in dwelling by 0.62% whilst the population grew by .086% – not an awful lot faster.