§ 45. Mr. Pawseyasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what information he has about the use local authorities are making of partnerships with the private sector to provide their tenants with the opportunity to buy low-cost homes.
§ Sir George YoungLocal authorities have reported the construction of more than 15,000 homes for sale by private builders under licence on local authority land since 1981. In addition, over the same period local authorities sold more than 2,000 hectares of housing land to private238W developers, sufficient for some 48,000 homes. More than half of local authorities in England and Wales have carried out at least one of these forms of partnership scheme with the private sector to provide new homes for sale, as part of our low-cost home ownership initiatives. A sample survey in 1984 suggested that more than half the purchasers of new partnership scheme homes were actual or potential local authority tenants.
Some local authorities have also co-operated with private developers to secure the improvement and sale of existing public dwellings. The provisions of the Housing and Planning Bill will make such sales easier.