Empty Council Houses

HC Deb 13 March 2002 vol 381 c1086W

Mrs. May

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will publish figures for the number of empty council houses, broken down by region, in England, for each year since 1997. [42227]

Mr. Byers

The number of council houses reported as being empty in each year since 1997 by region in England is as follows:

Local authority vacant dwellings on 1 April
	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001
North east	8,300	9,000	9,400	10,000	9,300
North west	16,300	18,700	18,800	19,600	19,500
Yorkshire and the Humber	12,200	12,800	14,000	15,400	14,600
East Midlands	5,600	5,100	5,400	6,100	6,100
West Midlands	9,200	10,000	11,200	12,800	10,600
Eastern	4,200	3,900	3,900	4,000	3,900
London	18,500	15,700	14,700	12,900	11,100
South east	4,100	3,700	3,700	3,600	3,000
South west	2,800	2,800	2,800	2,800	2,200
England	81,200	81,700	83,900	87,200	80,300

Note:

A level of vacancy is a usual feature of housing management, reflecting turnover and movement within the stock. There is likely to be some variation in the proportion of dwellings vacant in a local authority from one date to another during the year.

Source:

Housing Investment Programme (HIP) returns.