Housing: Low Incomes

Mr. Jim Cunningham
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many homes have been purchased with the aid of the HomeBuy Direct scheme in the last 12 months.

John Healey
Provisional data from the Homes and Communities Agency shows there were 7,686 completions through Low Cost Home Ownership products including 997 Homebuy Direct sales, between April and September 2009.

http://www.homesandcommunities.co.uk/public/documents/Official-Statistics-Release-Nov09.pdf

Mr. Jim Cunningham
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many housing development sites have been brought back into production as a result of the Kickstart Housing Delivery Programme.

John Healey
136 housing schemes have to date been announced as approved for investment under the Kickstart programme. Contracts are being finalised and workers  are returning to sites over the coming weeks. Details of approved schemes are posted on the Homes and Communities Agency’s website, at:

http://www.homesandcommunities.co.uk/public/documents/kickstart-schemes-approved-271009-region.pdf

Mr. Jim Cunningham
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what his most recent assessment is of the adequacy of the supply of affordable housing.

Mr. Ian Austin
We know there is a strong case for building more housing generally and more affordable housing in particular. In order to better understand the relationship between supply and identified need CLG has commissioned a housing need analytical model from Heriot-Watt university which will improve our understanding of the impact of housing supply on housing need going forward. It is hoped this will be available to the Department by the end of the year.

There were 4 million LA and RSL owned homes in England in 2007 and we are spending £7.5 billion over the two years 2009-10 and 2010-11 to deliver around 112,000 affordable homes.