To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (1) how many homes have been built for key workers in London under the (a) intermediate rent, (b) homebuy new build and (c) mixed funded for sale programmes; how many have been (i) sold and (ii) let under each programme; and what the (A) average and (B) longest time has been that a home in each programme has remained empty; (122392)

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).

The number of newly built homes only available for, and sold or let to, key workers in London since the launch of KWL in 2004 is provided in the following table. We do not have the figures requested on an annual basis.

The table shows that, of the units that had not been sold or let, 58 were under offer from key workers, 608 had been marketed to key workers for less than three months and 170 had been marketed to key workers for between three and six months. It normally takes between three and six months to market and sell a unit. So to date, 67 per cent. of new build homes only available to key workers under Key Worker Living have been sold or let to key workers.

Since the introduction of the New Build HomeBuy product in April 2006, we no longer fund specific key worker only schemes. Instead key workers access our New Build HomeBuy programme 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.

In addition to the numbers in the table above, we have helped 4,982 key workers in London through our KWL Open Market HomeBuy scheme and 4,168 key workers in London through the Starter Home Initiative (SHI). SHI was the predecessor to KWL and ran from 2001-2004. The majority of SHI completions were as Open Market HomeBuy, with a small number of newly built units that were grant funded via an equity loan for the purchaser.

Since the launch of KWL 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 this data is to actively manage the portfolio of new build properties and take action to prevent long term voids—it does not permit us to produce an average of the time it takes from completion of construction to occupation of individual units.

Responsibility for marketing and sale of the units lies with Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) and Homebuy Agents. The longest period of time that a unit built exclusively for key workers on our intermediate rent and shared ownership schemes has been unoccupied is 12 months and 20 months respectively. The former property remained unoccupied for this amount of time due to delays as a result of prospective tenants dropping out which meant that the property had to be remarketed. The latter property remained unoccupied as a result of legal issues, which were only recently resolved. These were exceptional circumstances and the Department has made clear to RSLs operating the scheme that speedy action needs to be taken when legal or other problems arise.

At present there are no properties available exclusively for key workers that have been unsold for more than six months.