A SLOWDOWN in the numbers of homes being built in the Harrogate district has seen the fewest number of houses finished for 12 years.

The district, including Ripon, Pateley Bridge, Knaresborough, Masham and Boroughbridge, saw 476 new properties built in the 12 months until March this year.

This is the lowest yearly rate since 1992-1993 when only 303 homes were built.

The figures are revealed in the newly-adopted Harrogate housing monitoring report.

Harrogate district is part of the so-called Golden Triangle where house prices have shown dramatic rises during the past few years.

The report acknowledges that high house prices present problems for local people who want to buy affordable homes.

There has been a dramatic drop in new homes being built on greenfield sites, down from 514 in 1996-1997 to 65 in the year under review.

There were 411 properties built on brownfield sites in the past 12 months.

Despite a recent slowdown in building, planning officials predict a 28 per cent oversupply by the end of 2006 because of higher building rates in previous years.

In a look at shopping trends, the report says Ripon city centre has been boosted by major environmental and retail improvements in and around the Market Place.

The number of retail units in Ripon has gone down by 36 since 1986.

There are imminent plans to allocate 1,000 square metres of retail floor space east of the Market Place.