New town house prices surge by third in 10 years
CWMBRAN has been identified as one of the best-performing new towns for property price growth over the past 30 years.
A report found that in Cwmbran house prices have soared by 388% to an average of £159,294 following the trend of new towns outperforming the national average.
New towns generally have seen house prices increase by nearly a third (32%) over the past 10 years, increasing by just over £55,500, from £173,337 in 2006 to £228,902 in 2016.
Cwmbran was established in 1949 to help provide employment opportunities for the South Wales Coalfield, and now has a population of around 50,000 people.
House prices across Britain generally have increased by just over a quarter (26%) over the past 10 years, from £200,059 to £251,679 – an increase of around £51,600.
Milton Keynes, which is celebrating its 50th birthday, was identified as the best-performing new town for property price growth over the past 30 years.
Halifax bank said that since 1986, property prices in Milton Keynes have surged by 601% to reach £309,415 on average, making it Britain’s top-performing new town over the past three decades.
Telford, Corby, Warrington and Skelmersdale in England were the new towns with the next strongest percentage increases in house price growth between 1986 and 2016.
Many of the new towns with the strongest house price growth over the past 10 years are in the London commuter belt, with prices in Welwyn Garden City, Stevenage and Hemel Hempstead seeing particularly strong gains since 1986 according to the report.
New towns were created in waves after the Second World War, generally emerging between the 1940s and 1960s and helping to alleviate housing shortages following the war.
Halifax, which used its own database, examined the house price performance of 26 of new towns to mark the milestone birthday of Milton Keynes.
Martin Ellis, a housing economist at Halifax, said: “Milton Keynes has been the best-performing of all the new towns created following the Second World War in terms of house price performance since 1986.
“Many of these new towns are within easy commuting distance of major commercial centres, where property is typically more expensive, particularly in the south-east, where the average property price is well below that in London.
“This makes them a highly popular choice with homebuyers, explaining their relatively good house price performance, and this popularity has been particularly notable during the last decade,” he said.