Official figures show that planning permissions were granted for 17,733 homes in the final three months of last year.
This was a 9% increase compared with a year earlier, mainly due to a sharp rise in the number of approvals for apartments. These jumped by almost 44% to 4,598, while planning permissions for houses were up only 0.6% at 13,135.
One-off houses accounted for almost a quarter of all new homes given planning permission.
For the year as a whole, planning permissions were granted for 62,828 houses, up almost 3,000 on 2006, while the figure for apartments was also up by nearly 3,000 at 21,569.
