Family Houses (Hansard, 28 October 2003)

§ Bob Russell
To ask the Deputy Prime Minister (1) how many family houses for rent he estimates will be built in the Colchester constituency in the next two years from the funds he has provided for the east of England; [135089]
(2) how many family houses for rent he estimates will be built in the east of England over the next two years from funds he has allocated. [135090]
206W

§ Keith Hill
It will be for Regional Housing Board to prioritise the use of resources the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has provided to the east of England amounting to £330 million over two years (2004–05 to 2005–06). Where funding is being provided by the Housing Corporation, registered social landlords (RSLs) will be expected to bid for funds in line with both regional and local priorities, the latter being set by the local authorities.
At this stage we expect that funding over this period will provide around 5,500 completions of homes in the east of England. These homes will be for rent or for low cost home ownership.
The Housing Corporation launched their bidding round on 24 October under which they will be allocating the resources for 2004–05 and 2005–06 to RSLs
Figures at constituency level are not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

§ Bob Russell
To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many families in the east of England he estimates are living in accommodation of a size below recommended standards. [135091]

§ Keith Hill
There are no recommended standards for occupancy but the "bedroom standard" has been used as a statistical measure of under-occupancy/ overcrowding since the 1970's. Using data from the Survey of English Housing, averaged over the years 2000–01, 2001–02 and 2002–03 in order to provide a sufficiently large sample, the estimated number of households in overcrowded accommodation (i.e. one or more bedrooms below the standard) in the east of England was 35,000 households or 1.6 per cent. of all households in the region. For the whole of England there were estimated to be 501,000 households i.e. 2.4 per cent.