Written question asked by Caroline Spelman (Conservative) on Wednesday, 16 December 2009, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 5 January 2010. It was answered by Barbara Follett (Labour) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010 on behalf of the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Shops: Empty Property

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government with reference to the answer to the hon. Member for Putney of 13 October 2009, Official Report, column 771W, on empty shops funding grant, if he will place in the Library a copy of the methodology used to allocate the funding to the local authorities listed.

Answer: As the Department for Communities and Local Government announced on August 13 and December 4 2009, it is providing £5.6 million to 107 local authorities to support initiatives designed to make use of vacant shops to give a boost to high streets and town centres adversely affected by the recession. We have targeted this funding at councils with relatively high levels of deprivation and each is receiving just over £52,000.The allocations announced in August 2009 were based on local authorities in the top third of the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) ranked in order of shop vacancy rates; the top 57 councils each received just over £52,000. The allocations announced in December 2009 were based on local authorities in the top half of the IMD ranked in order of shop vacancy rates, but excluded those which had received funding in August; a further 50 councils also received just over £52,000 each.A copy of the CLG report "The English Indices of Deprivation 2007" is available in the Library of the House. Shop vacancy data are part of a set of statistics collected by Experian on a frequent basis as part of their business. We entered into a commercial arrangement with Experian to use the data set for allocating this funding but do not have rights to publish it.

Secondary information