In total, 12,755 new homes were registered by NHBC in 2015 compared to 11,138 in 2014.

The registrations were the highest for eight year in Scotland but fell short of the 18,577 homes registered in 2005 and 20,617 in 2007.

Malcolm MacLeod, regional director for Scotland at the NHBC, said: “Scotland has enjoyed another promising year, with NHBC registrations at their highest for eight years and 15 per cent up on 2014. Encouragingly both the private and public sector showed further improvement helped no doubt by the Help to Buy scheme. Over 2016 it is expected that housing growth in the Lothians, especially around Edinburgh will continue and the completion of the Borders Railway Line could result in making development in the Scottish Borders more viable.”

The number of new homes registered to be built in the UK has topped 156,000 in 2015 – a continued increase of 7 per cent on the previous year, new NHBC figures have revealed.

In the UK as a whole, 156,140 new homes were registered by NHBC in 2015 - compared to 146,359 in 2014. The figures show NHBC registered 75 per cent more new homes in 2015 than it did at the time of the housing crash in 2009.

Private sector registrations increased by 7 per cent (118,611 in 2015; 110,674 in 2014), with the public sector increasing by 5 per cent (37,529 in 2015; 35,685 in 2014).