Almost 7 million homes are expected to be below the decent homes standard when the government survey of English housing is published next week.
However, the government says it is on track to meet its interim decent homes target for social housing:

it has pledged to make all social housing decent by 2010, but set an interim target of two-thirds – about 1.5 million – by next year.

Of the 6.7 million homes expected to fail, 1.6 million are social rented.

When the last English Housing Condition Survey was published in 1996, 8.9 million homes were classed as sub-standard – of them, 2.2 million were in the social sector.

Housing professionals welcomed the news, which was alluded to by new housing minister Keith Hill at an ODPM select committee hearing on Tuesday. But they warned that it did not tell the whole story.

Gwyneth Taylor, programme manager at the Local Government Association, said: "Most of the housing tackled so far has been relatively cheap to bring above the standard. Authorities in metropolitan areas with a high proportion of high-rise or system-build properties will face enormous expense bringing these properties up to standard."

A spokesman for the Northern Housing Consortium said: "The real work is really only just beginning."

Source

Housing Today