§ Mr. DrewTo ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will list the authorities that(a) met their targets for (i) affordable and (ii) social housing in the last year for which figures are available and (b) did not meet their targets. [136752]
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§ Keith HillThe Office of the Deputy Prime Minister does not set annual targets centrally for local authorities on either affordable or social housing.
Planning policies for affordable housing are set out in Planning Policy Guidance note 3, 'Housing', and in Circular 6/98, 'Planning for Affordable Housing'. They advise that where local planning authorities are able to demonstrate a lack of affordable housing to meet local needs, based on up-to-date surveys and other data of 153W local need, they should indicate in their local plan how many affordable homes need to be provided throughout the plan area, and set indicative targets for specific suitable sites (expressed either as numbers of homes or a percentage of the homes on the site).
Local planning authorities should be monitoring their performance against their local plan policies and targets, but this information is not held centrally, and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.