Don’t knock down houses, says empty homes charity

 
New figures show English councils are using money earmarked for ‘renewal’ to demolish empty homes. 

The Empty Homes Agency has discovered that local authorities in the north of Englandand and the Midlands are using a government fund to destroy ghost streets emptied under ‘Housing Market Renewal’ - New Labour’s flagship regeneration project. 

The evidence puts housing minister Grant Shapps in an awkward position. His department released £35.5m in ‘transition funds’ to thirteen projects – in Merseyside, East Lancashire, North Staffordshire, Hull and Teesside – after local bosses complained their regeneration efforts had come to a halt. 

But the evidence – released under Freedom of Information requests – shows the councils intend to demolish 5,125 empty homes and build only 113 new houses. In the majority of cases, 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.” 

For an investigation into the demolition of empty homes, see next week’s edition of The Big Issue, on the streets Monday February 27