£5 MILLION OF LOANS NOW APPROVED AT SEPTEMBER 2011
Kent County Council launched the No Use Empty Initiative in East Kent during 2005 and awarded its first “interest free” loan of £25,000 in August 2007. Since then the Initiative has gone from strength to strength and is fully embraced Countywide achieving excellent results.1,729 empty units have been returned to date thorugh a variety of interventions in order to provide much needed housing accommodation. Demand for financial assistance remains high and this month we have now approved loans of just over £5M, which has attracted leverage of £10.8M making a total investment fast approaching £16M.
Of the £5M loaned, we have already received back just under £1M, which effectively replensihes our loan fund in order to loan again.
Eight of our Twelve district partners are now signed up to the Loan Fund (Dartford, Dover, Sevenoaks, Shepway, Swale, Thanet, Tonbridge and Malling, Tunbridge Wells) and we hope to make a further announcement in a few weeks time regarding another district as we conclude discussions and await their respective authorisation to participate.
The Capital Loan fund has supported 274 units to date, which puts the average value of a No Use Empty Loan at £ 18,443.
Taking into consideration the “loss of interest” and the revenue support costs to administer the Initiative, we have calculated the cost of returning one empty unit to be in the region of £2,500, which we think is excellent value!
The No Use Empty initiative is primarily concerned with bringing residential properties back into use that have lain empty for six months or more. However, the scheme will also support loan applications for commercial premises where planning permission has been given for conversion to residential accommodation.
A Summary Table below by Financial Years is provided for information.
| Financial
Year |
NUE
Capital Loan £ |
Public&
Private Leverage £ |
Total
Project Costs £ |
Total Number Of Units |
| 2007-08 | 496,540 | 2,327,404 | 2,823,944 | 48 |
| 2008-09 | 486,000 | 416,879 | 902,879 | 21 |
| 2009-10 | 1,230,800 | 4,708,471 | 5,939,271 | 54 |
| 2010-11 | 1,825,310 | 2,174,930 | 4,000,240 | 93 |
| 2011-12 (To Sep) |
1,015,000 | 1,221,448 | 2,236,448 | 58 |
| Total | 5,053,650 | 10,849,132 | 15,902,782 | 274 |