Conservative Party joins empty homes fight

The Conservative party has offered its support to No Use Empty and the Empty Homes Agency to help bring some of the UK’s estimated 1 million empty homes back into use. The party claims its Empty Property Rescue Scheme can…

The Conservative party has offered its support to No Use Empty and the Empty Homes Agency to help bring some of the UK’s estimated 1 million empty homes back into use.

The party claims its Empty Property Rescue Scheme can ease the problem of 1.8 million families struggling to find accommodation while almost 1 million homes lie empty.

The recent proposals follow the campaign recently launched by Inside Housing magazine calling for more support to bring empty homes back into use. The campaign is endorsed by David Cameron and Shadow housing minister Grant Shapps, and calls on the Government to take practical steps to reduce the number of homes that are standing empty.

Tory leader David Cameron pledged to ‘temporarily relax Labour’s stringent rules and regulations’, making it easier for social landlords to use empty properties to house homeless families. He added: ‘It will also go a long way towards reducing the crime and anti-social behaviour associated with empty housing and preventing an over-correction in house prices by putting a floor in the housing market.’

Social tenants renting the homes would be given short-term tenancy agreements lasting between three to five years and offered an option to buy or to enter into shared equity deals.

The Tories say they would apply funding from the Homes and Communities Agency flexibly, to help housing associations to buy the homes or rent them out on behalf of their owners. The existing funding available would also cover renovation costs. A proportion of the proceeds from homes rented out for short periods then sold again, would return to the HCA.

No Use Empty encourages people to support the campaign by signing the petition which can be found by visiting:
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/EmptyPromise/

Steve Grimshaw, project manager of the No Use Empty campaign said: “This annoucnement is a very welcome change and we are delighted that David Cameron has launched this policy. To see the problem of empty homes finally being addressed in this way is promising, although we still have a long way to go.

At No Use Empty, we continue to combat the problem with our £5 million funding programme which provides homeowners and developers with loans from £25,000 to a maximum of £175,000 to bring disused properties back into use as this continues to make a real difference to this acute issue in Kent.”

Free help and advice is available to property owners who are advised to visit the website – www.no-use-empty.org – or call the No Use Empty hotline 08458 247605.