§ Mr. Jesselasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the approximate total number of households in greater London; what percentage of these houses was found to be unoccupied by census enumerators in 1971; what proportion of the latter is estimated to represent houses empty for a period of less than three months; and what allowance was made in compiling the figures for such circumstances as reluctance to answer the door and deafness.
§ Sir K. JosephI have been asked to reply.
Information about the period for which a house had been empty is not available from the census.
The information available from the 1971 census is as follows: —
In Greater London there were 2,713,075 households of which 61,260 were absent on census night.
380WOut of the total 2,601,040 dwellings 2,501,310 or 96.2 per cent. were occupied (in which there were 8,955 unoccupied household spaces) and 99,730 or 3.8 per cent. wholly unoccupied (of these 9,000 had never been occupied).
In certain cases where two or more households shared accommodation, all the accommodation was counted as one dwelling.
Enumerators were instructed to make sure that accommodation was not occupied before treating it as vacant. In cases where an enumerator made no contact with the household he left a form for the occupants to complete and return by post.