Portsmouth sees 22% drop in new homes as housebuilding slows
A huge divide is opening up across Britain’s housing market, with some cities seeing construction surge while others are grinding to a halt.
New data shows that while a handful of hotspots are rapidly expanding to meet demand, others have seen new builds fall off a cliff in just five years.
A new study by Mortgage Lane analysed official data from 64 UK cities, tracking how the number of newly built homes has changed between 2020/21 and 2024/25. By comparing five-year percentage shifts, the research reveals where development is thriving and where it’s struggling to keep up.
Portsmouth comes in 50th place, with a 22% drop in new homes.
That puts Portsmouth on the weaker side of the rankings, showing a clear slowdown in housebuilding over the five-year period. Instead of growth, the city has seen fewer new homes being delivered compared with earlier years, suggesting that development has lost momentum.
The decline points to a more limited pipeline of new projects coming through, with fewer large-scale developments or regeneration schemes compared with cities higher up the list. In a tightly built coastal city like Portsmouth, space constraints and planning pressures can make it harder to maintain consistent levels of new construction.
Compared with the top-performing cities, where housing output has surged, Portsmouth is moving in the opposite direction. While the drop is not among the most severe in the country, it still places the city firmly in the lower half of the rankings, reflecting a clear cooling in building activity.
But it’s Lincoln that ranks dead last, with a staggering 97% drop in new builds over the five-year period, effectively signalling a near-total halt in growth.
Full list of the UK cities with the most newly built homes:
Rank City 5-Year Percentage Change in New Home Construction
1 Brighton and Hove 557.14
2 Norwich 433.33
3 Leicester 400.00
4 Nottingham 316.67
5 Derby 243.75
6 York 200.00
7 Newport 194.44
8 Bath 178.57
9 Westminster 172.73
10 Milton Keynes 171.70
11 Oxford 161.54
12 Stirling 137.50
13 Peterborough 133.33
14 Canterbury 129.03
15 Liverpool 127.66
16 Wrexham 100.00
17 Bradford 79.55
18 Winchester 76.47
19 Swansea 68.75
20 Exeter 65.52
21 Bristol 54.05
22 Glasgow City 48.30
23 Preston 38.10
24 Dundee City 36.36
25 City of Edinburgh 33.85
26 Hereford 33.33
27 Derry 26.42
28 Coventry 24.56
29 Chelmsford 20.00
30 Southampton 16.67
31 Kingston upon Hull 15.00
32 Aberdeen City 10.47
33 Tunbridge Wells 8.57
34 Sunderland 4.92
35 Chichester 3.92
36 Armagh 3.75
37 Belfast -4.92
38 Birmingham -5.26
39 Manchester -6.21
40 Chester -7.58
41 Cambridge -7.89
42 Gloucester -8.51
43 Newry -13.33
44 Plymouth -15.38
45 Leeds -18.55
46 Cardiff -20.78
47 Stoke-on-Trent -21.21
48 Perth -21.62
49 Lichfield -21.74
50 Portsmouth -22.22