Norrköping, Linköping, Mjölby and most other municipalities in Östergötland have received a record number of applications for building permits in the past year and more telephone calls than before:
- The load has increased incredibly much, especially small matters such as questions about conservatories and balconies, says Johan Älvedal who is operations manager for the construction and environment office in Åtvidaberg.
The increase is not visible in the building permit figures for last year, but this year the cases have increased sharply and the notifications of building so-called Attefallshus have more than doubled.
Record also on Gotland
On Gotland, they began to notice the large increase in the autumn and now during the spring, they have received 50 percent more applications for building permits than they had last year.
The increased workload for the municipalities means that processing times increase.
Elin Lindqvist, unit manager for Building Permits in Norrköping, says that the average processing time for building permit cases last year was 20 days and that it has now been up to 22 days.
Lack of wood
The great interest in building also means that many types of timber are starting to run out of construction department stores, at the same time the timber is becoming more expensive, more about that in the feature above.
Christian Nielsen, a market analyst at Skogsindustrierna, says that one reason why timber prices have risen so much in the world is that Canada, which is the largest producer, reduced its production sharply last spring, because it was thought that the pandemic would reduce demand, but it was on the contrary.
Sweden has previously exported 70 percent of its sawn timber products, but that proportion has now increased to 75 percent and export prices have increased by almost 40 percent in one year.