Indeed, private and public housing saw substantial increases of 29.3% and 16.8%.
Duncan Kreeger, director of lender West One Loans, said: “Rome wasn’t built in a day. And nor is building a sustainable property market possible overnight.
“But the financial world is slowly moving towards a new model. Bridging finance has now provided more support for new homes than the government via Help to Buy – and such alternative models will ultimately win out, because they support actual growth in bricks and mortar.”
Overall construction fell by 1.1% in May month-on-month, while on an annual basis output in the construction industry increased by 3.5%.
Kreeger added: “A setback for construction is not just a hold-up for economic forecasters. When homes and offices are harder to come by, lives and careers are made more difficult too.
“Worries about the affordability of housing, whether voiced by Mark Carney or the man in the street, all stem from the same problem. We are still building half as many homes every year as we should be – even after the dramatic turnaround of the last six months.
“Ultimately, supply is just not keeping up. And planning isn’t the only obstacle. By far the sharpest bottleneck on developers is a lack of finance, caused by over-cautious and inflexible lenders.”
