3 days ago
Why is the South West building so many new homes when thousands of old ones are empty?
The roof was falling in, water was creeping into the adjoining houses, and the garden was a jungle. No one had lived in the two-bedroom terraced house in Bath's Oldfield Park since 2001.
Yet Bath & North East Somerset Council could do little about it, even though it had a housing waiting list of 5,500 people.
"There's no specific, standalone law that prohibits a property being left empty," says Debbie Freeman, the council's sole Empty Property Officer.
"It only becomes illegal when it starts to have a detrimental impact on other properties. We have to build a really clear case for enforcement; it's really labour-intensive. It can often cost a lot of money to bring cases to court.'
With limited powers, it took the council more than a decade of legal wrangling to force the Oldfield Park owner to sell. And B&NES is one of the minority of councils with a dedicated Empty Property Officer. Two thirds of councils don't have anyone tasked with fighting these empty property battles.
They used to have. Between 2012 and 2015 English councils got ring-fenced government money under the National Empty Homes Programme to fill up empty houses. They could spend it on officers like Debbie, grants, renovations. But when the money stopped, so did much of the work.
An interactive map showing the number of empty homes across the South West
According to the campaign group Action on Empty Homes, the number of long-term empty properties in England jumped by a third once the programme ended.
It now stands at over 265,000 empty homes: 24,000 of them here in the South West - these are unoccupied, unfurnished homes that have stood empty for more than six months.
Councils do have some tools for dealing with them. They can charge extra council tax on vacant properties (assuming they know who owns them - another challenge). They can give grants and VAT discounts to people wanting to renovate. Or they can do what B&NES Council does, and fight court battles.
But there is no legal requirement for local authorities to bring empty properties back into use. With stretched budgets, many don't.
"Empty homes are an opportunity to deal with the worst aspects of our housing crisis", says Chris Bailey, Campaign Manager at Action on Empty Homes. "Don't leave homes empty when they could be housing people.
"They're homes that are in the right places. They're homes that are on your street and my street. They're not built on greenbelt. They're right there where people want to live - in the middle of our towns and cities - and they're going to waste."
The government didn't mention empty homes in its manifesto, and it has not talked of reviving the funding to tackle the problem. Instead it has promised to build 1.5 million new houses over this parliament.
Legally, it's the easier solution. Politically, it's powerful. But thousands of old homes stand silent and forgotten.
