Empty Housing Scandal: The BBC is investigating the empty homes crisis

The BBC has put the issue of empty homes in the spotlight in a five-part series running all this week.

Leaving homes empty may seem like madness in a country where there is a housing crisis with mounting waiting lists up and down the country. But more than 200,000 properties are left empty long-term in the UK and that is why The Big Issue launched the Fill ‘Em Up campaign back in 2015.

And The Empty Housing Scandal, running all week on BBC One, is also aiming to build up awareness of the issue.

The series is presented by Matt Allwright, who goes on a journey across the UK to seek out the properties left vacant and discovers why they were left abandoned, how they can be brought back into use and the people who would benefit from that.

It’s a varied watch with episode one taking Allwright inside a long-term empty home in Croydon before he learns the number one rule of investigating a vacant property – don’t open the fridge.

Sadly more work is needed new figures show 11,000 more long term #emptyhomes this year than last-216,000: #MPs agree with us (poll) but Government isn't yet listening https://t.co/89wCUZELPX Nearly 1 in 30 English homes is empty NOW-either long-term, short-term or as a SecondHome https://t.co/XIm8XSo1Fr

— Action on Empty Homes @emptyhomes (@emptyhomes) February 13, 2019

The presenter also visits Toxteth – decimated by derelict empty homes in recent years – to see how the area has been regenerated, including a short visit to the home where Beatles drummer Ringo Starr was born.

As Allwright puts it in his introduction to the series: “Britain is in the middle of a housing crisis – there just aren’t enough homes for the people who desperately need them. But, shockingly, over 200,000 properties lie empty, being left to fall into rack and ruin.”

Catch The Empty Housing Scandal all week on BBC One from 09.15am or the BBC iPlayer

Image: BBC