There has been a sharp fall in house building within London, new research from the Housing & Finance Institute has revealed.

For the first time in five years, there are more homes being built in the Home Counties than in the capital. The Institute says this looks like being part of a longer-term trend of London being increasingly outgunned by the rest of the country – and not because of the Brexit vote in June 2016.

The analysis shows that Sadiq Khan is right to put a firm focus on housing in London, but also that his team will have their work cut out to regain momentum and keep the capital building the amount of homes that are required.

Official figures just released show that around 16,800 new homes were started in London in the year to March 2017. This was down sharply from nearly 23,000 homes the year before. By contrast, the Home Counties areas (Hertfordshire, Kent, Essex, Surrey and East Sussex together with home county areas over Berkshire/Thames Valley namely Slough, Windsor, Maidenhead and Reading) started over 24,300 new homes in the year to March 2017. This was a strong rise on around 21,500 new homes started the year before.