[holding answer 25 June 2007]: The Government offer housing assistance to key workers under the Key Worker Living (KWL) scheme in areas experiencing severe recruitment and retention difficulties. Key Worker Living funding is divided between Open Market HomeBuy (equity loans to purchase properties on the open market) and new build products such as New Build HomeBuy (shared ownership of newly built homes) and intermediate rent (newly built homes where the rent is set at a level between that charged by social and private landlords).
Since April 2006 we no longer fund specific key worker only new build schemes. Instead key workers access our New Build HomeBuy and intermediate rent programmes as a priority group alongside other priorities such as social tenants. Any key worker specific schemes yet to complete will have been funded under old shared ownership programmes.
Since the launch of Key Worker Living, the Housing Corporation has been collecting data on when the construction of a scheme has been completed and when the final unit has been occupied. The purpose of these data is to actively manage the portfolio of new build properties and take action to prevent long term empty units—and as such allows us to give a breakdown of the current position on empty properties only. As at the end of May 2007 there are no empty Key Worker Living properties designated for key workers only in the Wycombe constituency.