The number of new housing developments being built has hit a 10-year high, figures reveal.

Data from Homes England – an agency in charge of managing the government’s affordable developments and private sector or market housing schemes such as Build to Rent and the Home Building Fund – shows there were 16,955 starts on site in the six months to the end of September.

The majority of the house building starts were for affordable housing, up 24% annually to 12,310, while the figure for market schemes declined 21.3% to 4,645.

There were also 14,792 completions, down 7% annually but the second highest level since 2011.

Of the completions, 10,295 were for affordable housing, down 7% on last year, and 4,497 were for market housing, which fell 6.1% annually.

These figures exclude Help to Buy house building data.

Commenting on the data, Andrew Southern, chairman of property developer Southern Grove, said: “The industry is providing affordable homes at an increasingly rapid rate and this is one of the most important trends in house building right now.

“Affordable housing is a growing focus for both private companies and those responsible for spending government support wisely because of the disconnect between property prices and the scale of house building being achieved nationwide.

“The longer the housing crisis persists, the harder it becomes for developers of all kinds to build enough homes to begin to tame rampant house price growth.

“This is a problem that has kept policymakers awake at night for as long as the housing crisis has been a live issue.

“It has now become received wisdom that affordable housing is the only way to deliver realistically priced homes for first-time buyers, young families and young professionals on anything approaching a sensible time scale.

“It’s an incredibly important card to hold now, and in some areas such as London where house prices are least affordable, this socially conscious initiative has already become an essential strategy.”