Member Article

Region’s home improvements below national average

Home improvement activity in the North West fell below the national average in 2013.

Figures from construction intelligence specialists Barbour ABI show that there were 1.2 home improvement applications for every 100 homes in the region last year, an increase on 2011 but still well below the national average of 1.8.

Ribble Valley topped the list with 2.4 applications, and experts have put this down to the significant number of so-called “affluent grey” residents living in the area.

Michael Dall, lead economist at Barbour ABI, commented: “Areas such as the Ribble Valley tend to attract a high proportion of wealthy individuals looking to purchase second homes or holiday homes, which drives up home improvement activity.

“It’s also not surprising that the region’s more picturesque areas such as Eden and Allerdale, both of which nudge up against the Lake District National Park, are well placed in the table of home improvers.”

Blackpool, which has one of the lowest average incomes in the region, came bottom of the list. Here there was just one application made for home improvements for every 250 private homes in 2013 – one of­ the lowest rates in Britain.

Mr Dall added: “One of the more interesting aspects of this year’s survey is the rise of Trafford up the table, where the proportion of home improvement applications rose by around 40 per cent in 2013. The BBC’s relocation to this area of the North West may have been particularly significant.”

The Government’s Family Spending survey suggests that households across the North West spent a total of £3.2 billion on home improvements annually in 2011 and 2012, an average of £1,100 per household.

The survey is based on the number of planning applications received by each authority in proportion to the number of private homes within that authority.

There are exclusions: National Parks, Channel Islands, Isles of Scilly, Isle of Man, London Legacy (the Olympic Park).

Also omitted from the lists are authorities where there are fewer than 10,000 private homes, including the City of London, Orkney and the Shetlands.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Malia .