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5 May 2009 : Column 132W—continued
Margaret Beckett: I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 24 March 2009, Official Report, columns 216-17W.
The average household income figures provided for My Choice HomeBuy and Own Home Initiative are for 1 April 2008 to 28 February 2009.
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what procedure is followed by developers wishing to withdraw a property from a Homebuy scheme. [270621]
Margaret Beckett: Where a new build property has been developed with grant for one of the HomeBuy schemes, a developer has to get consent to sell the property outside the affordable housing sector. For RSLs this requires an application to the TSA for a section 9 consent to dispose. This constitutes a relevant event and triggers grant recycling. For non-RSL investment partners (including private sector developers) where properties are retained by the developer on completion, the rentcharge requires that they seek consent from the HCA before selling. If such consent were given, under the rentcharge, grant would be repaid with a link to value, the calculation for which is set out in the rentcharge. Generally, where grant is paid to private sector developers, at build completion, ownership and management is transferred to an RSL, in which case the requirements outlined above in relation to RSLs would apply.
For developers who have signed up to sell homes as part of the HomeBuy Direct, schemes can be withdrawn from the scheme with the consent of the HCA. As HomeBuy Direct is currently configured, there is no grant to repay in these circumstances because grant is not paid until the property is sold.
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many (a) New Build Homebuy and (b) Open Market Homebuy completions there were in each region in each of the last three months. [270641]
Margaret Beckett: The number of new build HomeBuy and open market HomeBuy completions funded through the Homes and Communities Agency in the each of the last three months of 2008-09 is as follows. These figures are provisional.
| New build HomeBuy | Open market HomeBuy | |||||
| January | February | March | January | February | March | |
| Source: Homes and Communities Agency | ||||||
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many Social Homebuy sales there were in each region in each of the last three months. [270689]
Margaret Beckett: The following table shows the provisional figures for Social HomeBuy sales in each of the last three months (January to March 2009) broken down by region.
| Sales in January to March 2009 | |||
| Region | January | February | March |
| (1) London figure in March includes two sales in local authority sector. Sales figures by registered social landlords (RSLs) are from the Homes and Communities Agency. | |||
Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government whether HomeBuy scheme variants are in operation; and what the differences in eligibility, equity terms and scope between each scheme are. [272452]
Margaret Beckett: The information requested can be found in the leaflet ‘CLG HomeBuy Factsheet’, a copy of which has been placed in the Library of the House.
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many people have applied for assistance under the (a) MyChoiceHomeBuy and (b) Ownhome scheme to date. [271627]
Margaret Beckett: To the end of March 2009 there were (a) 52,029 applications for MyChoiceHomeBuy and (b) 6,409 applications for Own Home.
Housing: Low Incomes
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many of the low-income households helped into home ownership in 2007-08 were resident in each local authority area. [271629]
Margaret Beckett: A table showing the number of homes purchased through affordable housing schemes in 2007-08, by local authority, has been deposited in the Library of the House.
These figures are taken from the low cost home ownership (LCHO) figures in the CLG affordable housing live table figures, and the number of right to buy (RTB) and preserved right to buy (PRTB) sales.
Affordable housing LCHO figures are collated from the Homes and Communities Agency Investment Management System (IMS); and Housing Strategy Statistical Appendix (HSSA) returns submitted to CLG
by local authorities. Figures showing the number of local authority right to buy sales are from P1B returns to CLG from local authorities. Figures showing the number of registered social landlord right to buy sales are from Regulatory and Statistical Returns (RSR) to the Tenant Services Authority (TSA) from RSLs.
Not all affordable housing sales can be broken down to local authority level, so we have included a row for sales where the LA is not known. This includes 3,150 registered social landlord PRTB sales, which are collected at RSL level rather than at LA level, and as RSLs can operate in more than one LA it is not possible to count these figures at LA level.
Housing: Affordable Homes
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (1) what the average cost to the public purse of building a new home for social rent was in each of the last five years; [272210]
(2) what the average cost to the public purse of building a new affordable home was in each of the last five years. [272211]
Mr. Iain Wright: The national average amount of grant per unit paid through the Homes and Communities Agency’s Affordable Housing Programme for social rent and intermediate affordable housing in each of the last five years is as follows:
| Grant per completion (£) | |
| Source: Homes and Communities Agency. | |
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what percentage of (a) social homes and (b) affordable housing was judged to be of (i) average and (ii) poor design quality in the most recent study of the sector conducted by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment. [272510]
Mr. Iain Wright:
The Affordable Housing Survey conducted by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) did not differentiate between social and affordable housing. Instead it looked at affordable housing schemes which were either built by Registered Social Landlords or provided for them by market developers as part of planning agreements. 61 per cent. of those schemes tested were judged average and
21 per cent. poor as set out in the report of the survey. This can be found on the HCA's website:
It should be noted however that the housing schemes that were assessed for this audit went through the planning process before our planning policy in PPS3 (November 2006) was issued which set out what is expected on housing design and before the Housing and Regeneration Act and Planning Act (both 2008) which put legislation in place to tackle poor quality design. We expect the future surveys to show increasing improvement as our policies have a chance to bed down and completed schemes reflect new HCA standards.
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what percentage of (a) social homes and (b) affordable housing was judged to be poor in its provision for adaptation, conversion and extension in the Homes and Communities Agency’s most recent survey of affordable housing. [272516]
Mr. Iain Wright: The Affordable Housing survey conducted by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) did not differentiate between social and affordable housing. Instead it looked at affordable housing schemes which were either built by RSLs or provided for them by market developers as part of planning agreements.
The percentage of these judged as poor in their provision for adaptation, conversion and extension was 94 per cent. as set out in the report which can be found on the HCA’s website:
The reason for this is that a large proportion of schemes assessed involved apartments where the design did not offer the potential to enable them to be adapted for the future.
It should be noted however that the housing schemes that were assessed for this audit went through the planning process before our planning policy in PPS3 (November 2006) was issued which set out what is expected on housing design and before the Housing and Regeneration Act and Planning Act (both 2008) which put legislation in place to tackle poor quality design. We expect the future surveys to show increasing improvement as our policies have a chance to bed down and completed schemes reflect new HCA standards.
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