§ Mr. Heddleasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on his recent announcement of his intention to allocate £37 million to 28 local authorities to enable them to repurchase defective prefabricated reinforced concrete houses previously sold to tenants.
§ Mr. John PattenMy predecessor announced on 9 August 1985 that an additional £37 million would be made available for 1985–86 to help those local authorities which were unable to meet their obligations under the Housing Defects Act 1984. Of the 119 authorities which applied for assistance, 28 seemed unlikely, on the basis of their own estimates, to have sufficient resources to meet these obligations. Additional housing investment programme allocations will be made retrospectively, after the end of the financial year, if these estimates are confirmed by actual expenditure.
The estimates submitted were drawn up early in the financial year and were inevitably subject to some uncertainty. For this reason I have asked all those local authorities which applied for assistance to send updated returns to my Department at the end of December.
A list of the 28 authorities is given below:
161W
Region Authority Bolton Preston North West Wigan Cannock Chase Hereford West Midlands North Warwick
Region Authority Barnsley Bradford Yorkshire and Humberside Rotherham Chiltern Epping Forest Hertsmere Southend-on-Sea Three Rivers Eastern Thurrock Havering Greater London Redbrige Eastbourne Hart Rochester Vale of White Horse South East Wokingham
Payments (out-turn prices) Enterprise Zone Local Authority 1981–82 £ 1982–83 £ 1983–84 £ 1984–85 £ Corby Corby DC 125,644 507,694 1,146,190 1,678,820 Dudley Dudley DC 701,965 1,201,198 1,230,854 1,545,351 Glanford Glanford DC — — — 65,505 Hartlepool Hartlepool BC 26,371 147,954 255,734 314,345 Isle of Dogs Newham LBC — 109,288 99,450 197,640 Tower Hamlets LB — 1,144,672 1,386,381 2,232,004 Middlesbrough Middlesbrough BC — — — 240,819 NE Lancashire Burnley BC — — 36,525 126,446 Hyndburn BC — — 17,331 74,881 Pendle BC — — 6,008 37,117 Rossendale DC — — 210 21,011 NW Kent Gillingham BC — — 48,749 223,937 Gravesend BC — — 36,000 117,097 Rochester-upon-Medway CC — — — 544,500 Rotherham Rotherham MBC — — 68,023 251,690 Salford/Trafford Salford CC 220,837 469,842 617,945 895,164 Trafford BC 252,534 726,121 973,831 1,201,888 Scunthorpe Scunthorpe BC — — 24,735 260,181 Speke Liverpool CC 516,244 1,173,880 936,110 1,483,882 Telford Wrekin DC — — — — 225,000 Tyneside Gateshead MBC 919,415 1,701,284 1,967,080 2,115,066 Newcastle-upon-Tyne CC 496,268 880,225 975,354 1,144,774 Wakefield Wakefield MBC 249,492 392,863 480,903 532,402 Wellingborough Wellingborough BC — — 13,094 74,351 Workington Allerdale DC — — 56,836 127,289 Payments in respect of rates revenue foregone in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are not a matter for my Department.