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As demand for housing intensifies, communities are still scarred by the blight of empty properties, says Steve Grimshaw. As housing waiting lists grow, almost one million homes in the UK now lie empty. It is not just those needing social housing who suffer. The nation's unoccupied properties blight the lives of those living nearby, scarring neighbourhoods, inviting anti-social behaviour, and sapping community spirit. They act as a socio-economic barrier and a deterrent to local investment. In the last three years, the number of empty homes has risen sharply Pic: Mike King The current government has made some effort to address the problem of empty homes in the UK, with mixed success. It has amended VAT rules so works on properties empty for two years or more are charged at a reduced VAT rate. It also introduced the housing market renewal programme, which was tasked with reducing vacancy in the most depressed housing markets in England, as well as a capital allowance scheme which allows owners of shops to offset tax on the costs of refurbishing empty flats above. It also introduced flexibility for councils to set their own council tax discount on empty homes. And finally, it introduced empty dwelling management orders (EDMOs), which allow councils to take over the management of long-term empty homes. In the last three years, the number of empty homes has risen sharply. Take-up of tax relief schemes is low, 45% of councils still offer full discounts on empty homes and, to date, there have only been 24 EDMOs, with many councils not implementing this measure. Since the recession hit, an increasing number of repossessed households have left empty homes in their wake – while, ironically, ramping up demand for already over-subscribed social housing – and new housing developments have failed to sell. Despite this, there have been no new policy promises from the Government on empty homes. Instead, it wants to build two million new homes before 2016, half of which could be provided by this existing, wasted, housing resource. Campaigning against the issue nationally, the Empty Homes Agency was set up as a housing association with charitable status to highlight the waste of empty property in England, and works with others to devise and promote solutions to bring empty property back into use. It does this by campaigning, lobbying and communicating for policy change to encourage owners to bring their homes back into use. It also works with the Government to provide information on empty homes and develop measures to tackle the problem. In addition, it provides support to local authorities, housing associations and community groups which want to bring empty homes back into use. As well as the Government's efforts, other political parties have much to say about an issue which has been severely exacerbated by the recession. Locally, Conservative administrations have devoted attention and resource to councils to tackle the issue. There has been significant success in Kent and Birmingham. No Use Empty is the empty property initiative in Kent which operates through a unique partnership scheme between Kent CC, the local district and borough councils across the county, and consultants to combine resources and intelligence in order to deliver success. For the past three years, the initiative has proactively tackled the issue through a hard-hitting campaign which seeks to raise awareness of the problems of empty housing and the severe detrimental impact they cause to local communities. In its recent housing Green Paper, the Conservatives promised two measures to tackle empty homes – the empty property rescue scheme would divert affordable housing resources to reusing empty homes, and would temporarily reduce requirements to encourage take up. Also, by extending and reinvigorating the PROD (public request ordering disposal) scheme giving power to people to request the sale of long-term empty publicly-owned buildings and extending it to all government bodies and quangos. The Liberal Democrats have set out several measures in recent months to tackle empty homes, including: to equalise VAT rates on renovation and new-build to amend commercial property rate relief rules to allow owners of empty commercial property used temporarily as housing to continue to claim rate relief to introduce a repair and renewal loan scheme for owners of empty properties if they agree to lease them for at least five years to housing associations as social housing to allow housing associations and local authorities to use funding from the Homes and Communities Agency to refurbish newly-purchased private empty homes to make £40m available in Homes and Communities Agency grant for short-life housing. All parties clearly have a lot to say on empty homes, and this is particularly notable, given that, in the run-up to the last general election, none of the parties had raised it as an issue. The empty homes problem is definitely getting worse, but at least, now, there is a real debate on how to tackle it. Steve Grimshaw is project manager for No Use Empty at Kent CC

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No-one is at home

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