More new homes across major UK cities

There has been a significant increase in the number of new projects, including new homes schemes, in the UK's five main regional cities, according to a new report. The latest UK Cities Crane Survey, undertaken by Deloitte Real Estate, found that 45 new projects, including major residential developments, started construction across the five major regional UK cities - Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh and Glasgow - over the year to July 2013, a rise of 80% year-on-year.

The crane survey looks at major new-build construction schemes, including residential projects consisting of at least 25 units, as well as office, retail, education, leisure and hotel schemes.

The survey found Manchester recorded the most new project starts, with 19, including eight residential projects, followed by Edinburgh, with nine project starts and Leeds with eight, Birmingham with five and Glasgow with four.

The report stated that the market for city centre residential development has improved somewhat over the past year with increasing developer confidence and financial government support resulting in a two-fold increase in the number of units being built.

Around 1,400 new homes are under construction across the city centres monitored in the survey. However, this remains some way below the 10,135 units recorded in crane surveys at the peak of the market in 2007.

"This increase in construction is unlikely to be a one-off. With an improving residential demand, supply shortages appearing in a number of the commercial property sectors and signs of increasing activity from investors in regional commercial real estate. It looks like we will see more development activity over the next 12 months," said Anthony Duggan, head of research at Deloitte Real Estate.