Owen Boswarva's blog

This is a map of new homes in England and Wales based on build period estimates in VOA's latest Council Tax statistics.

Zoom in to see the estimates for individual Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs).

From To

Notes on the data

The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) publishes annual statistics on the stock of domestic properties in England and Wales by Council Tax band, property type and build period. The statistics are available at various levels of geography including small areas.

The main source of data for the map above is the property counts in Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs) for build periods from 2000 to 2023.

The data was extracted from VOA's administrative database on 31 March 2023 and includes property counts for 14 build periods: 2000-08, individual years ending 2009 through 2021, and 2022-23. Counts are rounded to the nearest 10 with nil counts reported as 0 and other counts fewer than 5 reported as "-".

According to VOA's background notes the build periods are derived from age codes. If I have understood VOA's method correctly, the period will usually indicate when the structure of the property was built. However, if the property was created from an existing building that was not previously a dwelling, the build period will indicate the date of conversion. This means the build period statistics cannot be used to distinguish between purpose-built new build properties and office to residential conversions made under permitted development rights.

For more information about build periods, see the Age Profiles of Housing Stock in England and Wales open data download and postcode lookup on my Datadaptive website.