Houses fail decent homes standard

More than a third of houses in England still fail to meet the decent homes standards according to the government’s own figures. Research from 2006, containing the latest data, show there were 7.7 million homes that did not meet the standard - or 35 per cent of the total. In the private rented sector nearly half of all homes were non-decent, whereas homes owned by housing associations were the most likely to be decent with only 12.8 per cent failing. The figures are worse than the 2005 survey. The government has set a target that all dwellings should meet the decent homes standard by 2010.