The Scandal Of Empty Homes
THE number of empty homes in England increased by almost 11,000 last year to 216,000, a study reveals.
Research by Action on Empty Homes and the Nationwide building society indicated that 2018 saw the fastest rise in the number of long-term unoccupied properties since the 2008 recession. Their report calls for urgent action to bring them back into circulation to help tackle the housing crisis.
There are currently more than one million families on waiting lists for local authority homes. The number of vacant properties increased by 5.3 per cent — double the 2.6 per cent rise seen the previous year. The 216,000 empty properties is equivalent to 72 per cent of the government’s annual new homes target.
The report ‘Empty Homes England 2019’ makes some key recommendations to the government, including:
- Adopt a national investment programme targeted at areas with high levels of long-term empty homes.
- Re-establish dedicated funding programmes to support local authorities and housing providers to create affordable housing from long-term empty homes in all parts of England.
- Ensure that funding programmes to tackle empty homes are also open to community-led organisations who are not registered providers, and invest in capacity building in this sector.
- Provide support for ‘empty home prevention’ schemes, by supporting investment in existing homes. This should include a so-called ‘new Green Deal’ to offer financial support to owners for sustainability measures and home improvements designed to increase the longevity, affordability and environmental efficiency of existing homes, including insulation measures.
- Conduct a review of how the legal powers available to local authorities to tackle empty homes and poor standards of management in the private rented sector could be improved.
Will McMahon, director of Action on Empty Homes said: “With homeless numbers at their highest levels in over a decade, it makes no sense to leave hundreds of thousands of homes standing long-term empty.”
