Empty Homes

Press release 20th February 2012

Don’t Knock Them Down: Give Them Away, says Empty Homes Charity.

Independent charity Empty Homes is urging councils to give away empty houses instead of knocking them down.

£70m of public money has been earmarked for demolishing over 5,000 homes, with little prospect of them being replaced.

Thirteen councils have been awarded £35.5m in match funded government grants (through the Housing Market Renewal Transition Fund) to wind up their Housing Market renewal programmes. Empty Homes has discovered through the Freedom of Information Act, that councils intend to use virtually all of this money to knock down empty homes and buy up more houses in order to demolish them.

In total the councils intend to demolish 5,125 homes. In the majority of cases the proposals make clear that there are no imminent plans to replace the houses, and the cleared sites are set to be grassed over or used as informal car parks.

Empty Homes Chief Executive David Ireland said “Most people would think it potty that a country with a housing shortage would spend millions knocking down homes just to create open space.   We think this is a deeply unimaginative and unappealing way of dealing with empty homes and we urge the councils involved to change their plans and consider renovating empty houses, or even giving them away conditional on new owners renovating them.”

He continued. “ We do not object to demolition if local people support it, and it enables replacement with better houses, but most of these proposals are about retrenchment rather than development. I think there are far better ways of dealing with empty property. We are happy to offer our help to any of the councils involved to assist them develop new uses for empty homes.”

 Notes

The Housing Market Renewal Transition Fund was awarded to thirteen councils in the north of England in November 2011. The allocations can be found here http://www.homesandcommunities.co.uk/ourwork/housing-market-renewal-transition

The Housing Market Renewal Programme (also known as Pathfinder) was established in 2002 and covered nine original HMR Pathfinders; (Birmingham/Sandwell; East Lancashire; Hull and East Riding;  Manchester/Salford; Merseyside; Oldham/Rochdale; Newcastle/Gateshead; North Staffordshire; South Yorkshire).  Three further areas were added in 2005 (Tees Valley; West Cumbria; West Yorkshire).  Funding for the whole programme came to an end in 2011.

Freedom of Information requests by Empty Homes show that councils intend to use the transition fund to demolish 5,125 houses and renovate 113.

Applications to the transition fund from eleven councils; Burnley, Hartlepool, Hull, Liverpool, Middlesbrough, Pendle, Redcar and Cleveland, Sefton, Stockton on Tees, and Wirral, were solely for land acquisition and demolition of houses. Only two; Hyndburn and Stoke on Trent applied for funding for the renovation of any empty houses.

The councils’ bids to the transition fund show few prospects of new development taking place where houses are demolished. A joint bid for the four Teesside councils say “In the interim the individual local authority forward strategies for the majority of these areas in the short-medium term is demolition followed by grassing over until market conditions improve.”

Proposals in other bids are for temporary car parks and interim green spaces.

Responses to Freedom of Information requests by “Empty Homes” for the successful bids made  to the transition fund revealed the following targeted outputs in each council area.

* Hyndburn council applied for alternative schemes one option included 70 refurbishments, another included 70 demolitions. Figures for both alternatives have been included. Hyndburn council have contacted us to point out that refurbishment  is their prefered option.

**Figure obtained from Hull City council press release. Hull City Council denied our full FOI request

For press enquiries please contact Shashi Ioannides 0207921 4450

www.emptyhomes.com