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21 May 2009 : Column 1544W—continued
Pursuant to the same answer of 5 May 2009, the contracts let by the Academy for Sustainable Communities on a single tender basis were as follows:
Homes and Communities Agency: Finance
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government pursuant to the answer of 5 May 2009, Official Report, column 130W, on the Homes and Communities Agency: finance, for what reason the Housing Corporation made a termination payment to (a) the administrator of Elonex plc and (b) the contractor. [274797]
Mr. Iain Wright: The Housing Corporation (HC) paid a total of £39,697.64 as an out of court settlement to the administrators of Elonex following the earlier termination of that contract due to a material breach in that contract arising from poor service delivery. Since this was a payment to a supplier that gave no tangible benefit to the HC it was declared as a loss/special payment.
The HC paid a total of £11,162 to terminate the contract. The reasons for the termination are commercial in confidence. Since the contractor did not work their notice, the HC did not receive any benefit from this payment. It was, therefore, declared as a loss/special payment.
Housing Revenue Accounts
Mr. Dismore: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what progress has been made on the Housing Revenue Account review; and when the expected consultation paper will be issued. [276521]
Mr. Iain Wright: We expect the Review of Council Housing Finance to report to the Chief Secretary and to the Minister for Housing and Planning early in the summer. Consultation will follow thereafter.
Housing: Construction
Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government in which Government Office regions the Homes and Communities Agency reached 80 per cent. of its start of year targets for (a) starts and (b) completions for 2008-09. [270120]
Margaret Beckett: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave her on 24 April 2009, Official Report, column 913W.
Housing: Low Incomes
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government pursuant to the answer of 24 March 2009, Official Report, columns 217-18W, on the HomeBuy scheme, how many transactions under her Department’s HomeBuy Direct scheme have been completed. [274188]
Margaret Beckett: To the end of April 2009, three transactions had been fully completed under the HomeBuy Direct scheme. However, a number of participating developers are reporting high levels of pre-registrations for their HomeBuy Direct properties.
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what the cost to her Department of the ( a) Homebuy Direct, (b) OwnHome, (c) OpenMarket HomeBuy, (d) the First Time Buyers Initiative, (e) MyChoice HomeBuy, (f) New Build HomeBuy, (g) Social HomeBuy and (h) Rent to HomeBuy schemes has been since the beginning of financial year 2009-10. [275570]
Margaret Beckett: The following table shows provisional expenditure by the Homes and Communities Agency on each of the categories listed.
| Spend in April 2009( 1) (£ million) | |
| (1) Provisional Source: Homes and Communities Agency | |
The figure shown for Open Market HomeBuy is the total for that product. The sums for MyChoice HomeBuy and OwnHome are subsets of this total.
Robert Neill:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (1) pursuant to the answer to the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield of
8 May 2009, Official Report, columns 448-49W, on housing: low incomes, how many New Build Homebuy properties were vacant at the latest date for which figures are available; [276923]
(2) how many low-cost home ownership homes in each Government Office region have not yet been sold. [277020]
Margaret Beckett: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 14 May 2009, Official Report, column 1004W.
A regional breakdown of the figures is not available.
Local Development Frameworks
Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what proportion of local planning authorities in England have in place an up-to-date local development framework. [276571]
Mr. Iain Wright: The Local Development Framework is a suite of development plan documents (DPDs) which should have regard to a 15-year time horizon and can evolve over time and respond to changing circumstances. This means that there is no definition of what constitutes up-to-date.
However, since the introduction of local development frameworks in 2004, the Planning Inspectorate who independently examine all DPDs have found 112 DPDs sound, including 43 core strategies. Between 2000 and 2007, 109 local authorities adopted old-style plans. All local planning authorities, including those with sound core strategies, can continue to use saved policies from old-style plans as part of their statutory development plan until such time as they are superseded by one of the suite of documents within the Local Development Framework.
Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007
David Howarth: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (1) what plans she has (a) to bring into force and (b) to make regulations under Part 6 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007; [276757]
(2) when she plans to publish the summary of responses to the consultation, Real People, Real Power: The Making and Enforcement of Byelaws, which closed on 20 November 2008. [276758]
John Healey: As indicated in our final Local Government Implementation Plan, published on 19 March 2009, we intend to have secondary legislation, made under Part 6 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, implementing our proposals on byelaws, in place by summer 2009.
Prior to making any such legislation, we will publish a summary of responses to the consultation exercise.
Planning Permission: Appeals
Robert Neill: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what definition the Planning Inspectorate will use of householder development for the purposes of the expedited procedure for household appeals. [276967]
Mr. Iain Wright: “Householder development” means:
(a) an application for planning permission for development of an existing dwelling house, or development within the curtilage of such a dwelling house for any purpose incidental to the enjoyment of the dwelling house, or
(b) an application for any consent, agreement or approval required by or under a planning permission, development order or local development order in relation to such development but does not include:
(i) an application for change of use, or
(ii) an application to change the number of dwellings in a building.
Robert Neill: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government whether the Householder Appeals Service will receive representations from those who objected to a planning application which is the subject of an appeal. [276968]
Mr. Iain Wright: The Householder Appeals Service will continue to receive all representations made at the planning application stage from those who objected. However, there is no longer a specific stage during the appeal where those who objected at the planning application stage can then make further representations.
Robert Neill: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government whether the Householder Appeals Service will consider applications to demolish a dwelling house and construct another building in its place. [276969]
Mr. Iain Wright: No, the demolition and replacement of a dwelling with another falls outside terms of what is ‘Householder Development’ and therefore as a result also falls outside the definition of the Householder Appeals Service.
Rent to HomeBuy Scheme
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many (a) registered social landlords and (b) households are taking part in the Rent to HomeBuy scheme. [276143]
Margaret Beckett: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 19 May 2009, Official Report, column 1357W, and on 26 March 2009, Official Report, column 719-720W.
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many applications under the Rent to HomeBuy scheme have been received; and if she will make a statement. [276144]
Margaret Beckett: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 26 March 2009, Official Report, column 719W.
Retail Trade: Planning
Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what estimate she has made of the proportion of new retail development which was located in town centres in each of the last three years; and what information her Department holds on projected trends in the location of proposed retail development in the next three years. [276569]
Mr. Iain Wright: The latest available estimates give the proportion of retail properties that existed on 1 April 2007 and were built in town centres and edge of town centre locations in 2004, 2005 and 2006.
The estimates are set out in the following table:
| Year of build | Percentage of retail floor space built in town centres plus edge of centre locations |
The Department produces no statistics on trends for future years.
Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government when she expects the revised approach to retail planning in local plans proposed by draft Planning Policy Statement 4 to be integrated into local development frameworks throughout England. [276570]
Mr. Iain Wright: There is no set timetable for local planning authorities to take the final PPS 4 into account as they prepare and revise documents within their Local Development Frameworks. They will need to consider the extent to which emerging local development documents should have regard to the policies in the final PPS but they should not, in seeking to reflect new policies in plans, delay the plan-making process. However, before development plans can be reviewed to reflect the policy statement, the policies in the final PPS may be material, depending on the particular circumstances of the case, to decisions on individual planning applications and appeals.
Social Rented Housing: Empty Property
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many vacant (a) local authority and (b) registered social landlord dwellings there were in each local authority area in each of the last three years. [275875]
Mr. Iain Wright [holding answer 15 May 2009]: A table showing the number of vacant local authority and registered social landlord dwellings and dwelling stock in each local authority area in each of the last three years has been placed in the Library of the House.
Tenant Services Authority: Public Relations
Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government pursuant to the answer of 29 January 2009, Official Report, column 784W, on the Tenant Services Authority: publicity, with which stakeholders the authority engaged through the expenditure on public relations activities; and what the output was of each project funded by the expenditure on branding. [273456]
Mr. Iain Wright: The Tenant Services Authority’s expenditure on public affairs consultancy funded APCO’s consultancy to assist the TSA with the development of their strategy for engaging with stakeholders. No stakeholder engagement was undertaken in relation to this particular expenditure.
The TSAs expenditure on branding funded a single project to develop a new brand identity. The outputs included research via consultation with tenants and stakeholders and development of the brand identity covering everything related to the brand, including the TSA logo, publication styles and development of the TSA mission statement, exhibition signage and promotional items.
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