2001/2002 Survey of English housing

Citation

(2006), "2001/2002 Survey of English housing", Structural Survey, Vol. 24 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ss.2006.11024cab.003

2001/2002 Survey of English housing

2001/2002 Survey of English housing

Keywords: Residential homes, Surveys, Social trends

The ODPM have published this survey of nearly 20,000 households which was carried out for the ODPM by the National Centre for Social Research and includes new questions on energy efficiency, car ownership and access to amenities, disability and gardening for wildlife. Key findings include: the number of households in England rose from 17.2m in 1981 to 20.3m in 2001/2002. This increase, which exceeded the modest growth in population, reflects the tendency for the average household size to decline. Home ownership, which had increased substantially during the 1980s, grew more slowly during the 1990s, from 68 per cent of all households in 1991 to 70 per cent (14.3m) in 2001/2002. Most of this growth was in households owning outright as mortgages taken out in earlier decades were paid off. The number of households renting from councils fell from 5.1m (30 per cent of all households) in 1981 to 2.8m (14 per cent) in 2001/2, reflecting both “Right to buy” purchases by tenants and direct transfer of Council dwellings to Registered Social Landlords (mainly Housing Associations).

The proportion of privately renting households was 8.6 per cent (1.6m) in 1989 and at 9.7 per cent (2m) in 2001/2002. In 2001/2002, 85 per cent of households had a garden, and 66 per cent of this figure encouraged wildlife by feeding the birds.