§ Mr. George Cunninghamasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he has placed any restriction for the time being on the number of housing 408W action area declarations which he is prepared to allow to be made by any individual local authority.
§ Mr. FreesonNo. Clearly, a decision whether or not to intervene under Section 37 of the Housing Act 1974 will be influenced by the extent to which a local authority possesses sufficient resources to take effective action in its declared areas, but there is no question of an arbitrary limit having been imposed. On the contrary I want to encourage those authorities which are dealing with their areas of housing stress and which are able to demonstrate that they have the resources to do so. I hope, too, that they will programme the declaration of priority neighbourhoods and further general improvement areas.
The following is a list of housing action area declarations notified to the Department up to 31st May 1975—England only.
Declaring Authority Number of areas declared Birmingham … 4 GLC … 1 Halton … 1 Haringey … 1 Kensington and Chelsea … 1 Newcastle-upon-Tyne … 7 Pendle … 1 Salford … 1 Sandwell … 1 Sheffield … 2 South Ribble … 2 Southwark … 1 Wandsworth … 1 Westminster … 1 Wolverhampton … 1