§ Mr. Bob Dunnasked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to publish his Department's report on housing for single people of working age.
§ Mr. StanleyThe Department is publishing today a report entitled "Housing Initiatives for Single People of Working Age". It describes 17 imaginative schemes that have recently been carried out in the private and public sectors to provide homes to buy and homes to rent for single people of working age, of whom there are over 6 million in England and Wales.
The report suggests that possibly seven out of ten single people of working age would prefer to buy if they could. There is therefore enormous scope for the house building industry, local authorities and housing associations to work together to provide low-cost homes for single people to buy outright or on a shared ownership basis. The home ownership schemes featured in the report were all oversubscribed.
The rented schemes show how unpopular multi-storey blocks of family flats can be transformed by local 296W authorities into desirable and valued accommodation for single people, and how certain housing associations and local authorities have pioneered some imaginative new build schemes of rented accommodation for single people. Copies of the report have been placed in the Library and are being distributed widely to local authoritis, housing associations and the house building industry. I hope it will be widely read and acted upon.