§ Mr. Nicholas WintertonTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what estimate he has made of the funds required to clear the current backlog of repairs to and modernisation programmes of local authority housing stock; and how much this figure represents per dwelling. [123013]
§ Mr. MullinWe estimate, on the basis of sample data collected in the 1996 English House Condition Survey, that the backlog of renovation work on the council housing stock amounts to around £10 billion with a further £9 billion being required for improvement/ modernisation work. This equates to an average of between £5,500 and £6,000 a dwelling. The renovation backlog will have been tackled in around a quarter of a million homes by March 2002 as a result of the extra resources we have made available for housing investment.