Social housing providers own over 2.5 million homes

Published by Max Salsbury for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Development

Social housing providers own a total of 2,586,115 homes, according to the Home and Community Agency's (HCA) Statistical Data Return (SDR) which has been published for the first time.  

The data shows a 2.4% increase on the total for 2011 and comes from an annual survey completed by all Private Registered Providers (PRPs) in England, which includes data on size and type of home, location and rents over the year.

Key findings from the SDR include:

• 1.4% (26,156) of General Needs stock was vacant. This is a slight reduction from the 2011 figure of 1.5%. Vacant Supported Housing and Housing for Older People stock reduced from 5.1% in 2011 to 4.4% in 2012.

• In 2011/12, 34,907 new homes were built and 6,332 were purchased by large PRPs.

• A total of 4,114 homes were sold to tenants, 3,989 were demolished and 3,463 were disposed of for non-social housing use by large PRPs.

• The average net rent for General Needs stock owned by large PRPs was £83.20 per week at 31 March 2012.  This represented a 6.3% increase from 2011.  The average gross rent (including any service charges eligible for housing benefit) was £86.27 per week.

• At 31 March 2012, 1.9% of social rental stock owned by PRPs did not meet the Decent Homes Standard, including cases of tenants declining improvement works to their property.  This was a reduction from the previous year, where 2.4% did not meet the standard.

Jonathan Walters, Deputy Director of Regulatory Operations at the HCA, said: “These data have been published as an important contribution to the regulator’s role in helping providers and others to increase understanding of the sector-wide context within which they operate, and is part of our commitment to transparency.”