§ Mrs. Rumboldasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will encourage London boroughs to use their existing vacant sites for housing needs.
§ Sir George YoungWe are already doing so. We have encouraged all local housing authorities to pursue a number of low-cost home ownership initiatives, including several involving the disposal of council-owned land for private development. The land registers established under part X of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980 enable builders to identify unused and underused sites of more than one acre held by public bodies, and my Department has been discussing this with certain London boroughs and representatives of the Housebuilders Federation.