§ Mr. FrenchTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list those local authorities which have sold fewer than 10 per cent. of their council house stock.
§ Mr. ChopeOf those authorities which have provided a complete record of their sales from April 1979 to March 1989, only two authorities, Oldham and Blackburn, report sales of less than 10 per cent. of their stock. Six authorities —Arun, Bracknell Forest, Bromley, Crawley, Fenland and Havant—report sales of more than 35 per cent. of their stock.
There are 12 authorities where an incomplete total of sales between April 1979 and March 1989 shows that less than 10 per cent. of their stock has been sold, but who may have exceeded the 10 per cent. threshold if unreported sales were to be included.
I have today laid a table in the Library giving available information up to March 1989. It shows year by year information for each authority since 1984–85, together with cumulative figures since April 1979.
Over 1 million local authority dwellings (about a fifth of the England 1979 stock) had been sold by the end of March 1989, the majority to sitting tenants, and sales are continuing at a high level. Information on total year by year sales of local authority houses and flats in England is listed in the following table. The number of flats sold in 1988–89 was greater than in any previous financial year and the number of houses sold was the largest since 1982–83.
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Sales of local authority dwellings England1 Year Houses Flats 1979–80 52,386 1,162 1980–81 66,946 1,282 1981–82 125,200 2,967 1982–83 175,334 5,902 1983–84 113,613 8,430 1984–85 85,487 5,885 1985–86 76,088 6,230 1986–87 77,677 8,454 21987–88 90,852 16,728 1988–89 116,933 26,895
Year Houses Flats 980,516 83,935 1 Includes some small transfers to housing associations. 2 Excludes the sale of 5,480 dwellings by the London Residuary Body to Thamesmead Town Ltd.