Skip to main content

Rented Accommodation

Volume 972: debated on Monday 22 October 1979

The text on this page has been created from Hansard archive content, it may contain typographical errors.

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what has been the reduction in housing units in the private rented sector in each calendar year since and including 1946.

Information as requested is not available. Firm estimates of the number of dwellings rented from private owners are available only for certain years and are as follows:

DWELLINGS RENTED FROM PRIVATE OWNERS*: ENGLAND: 1951–1977
thousands
April19516,300
April19614,310
April19663,624
April19713,045
December19772,207
* Including dwellings rented with farm, with business premises, by virtue of employment; excluding dwellings owned by housing associations. Changes in the definition of dwelling used in the 1971 Census resulted in an increase of about 25,000 dwellings.
Source: 1951–71—Census of Population; 1977—the National Dwelling and Housing Survey.

In addition, the Department of the Environment has made annual estimates from 1966 of the housing stock subdivided by tenure, and those are published in Housing and Construction Statistics No. 29. However, these estimates include certain assumptions regarding the tenure distribution of gains and losses in the housing stock and are, therefore, not based on direct evidence.