I tried using the Tabulate intersection tool as the description seems to match what I am after. However, I compared the results from the output table to the total building area for each ward in another shapefile (previously when using the split tool I produced a different shapefile of building data constrained by perimeter of each ward, so I looked at the sum statistics for the area of one of these shapefiles) and the values were very different. Also in the output table you can tell that the percentage values (I assume building area of total area) are cleary wrong when you look visually at the data (output table has 3% for one ward when looking at the data the buildings cover more than half the ward area). This doesn't seem to have worked although I am confused because the tool description seems to match what I'm after.
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