Leeds building application rates boom as house prices also up

Building and home improvement is booming in Leeds despite the downturn, with planning applications submitted to and determined by the council on the rise.

Total application numbers - from both householders and developers - submitted overall in the past year were up four percent to almost 5,000, a fourth successive year on year increase.

Decisions were also made on 4,384 applications in the same period.

The planning department in Leeds is ”progressing with a number of large and strategically important planning applications”, according to an annual report presented to the council’s Joint Plans Panel.

“There has been significant activity with major projects being progressed across the city in the past year,” the report adds, stressing that the determination times are also ahead of Government targets.

The report says: “This year has seen a further significant improvement in performance in determination times on all types of applications, particularly major applications. Across all application types, 93 per cent of all applications were determined in time.”

The new figures come as the latest Hometrack UK Cities House Price Index revealed that average year on year house prices in Leeds rose by 7.6 per cent to £151,800 in the first six months of this year, compared to 4.1 per cent for the same period last year.

Bristol was named the fastest growing city in the UK with a year on year growth rate of 14.7 per cent, but Leeds also registered strong growth in the last quarter.

Richard Donnell, Insight Director at Hometrack said: “In many large regional cities sales appear to have held up thanks to a combination of much better housing affordability, improving economic growth and record low mortgage rates helping to stimulate demand.”