Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Special offer: Receive 8 issues for just £9.99!
SUBSCRIBE
Housing

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

Matt Allwright’s daytime investigation show looks at bringing homes back into use, just like our long-running Fill ‘Em Up campaign

Empty Homes

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.

Advertisement
Advertisement

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

Advertisement

Never miss an issue

Take advantage of our special New Year subscription offer. Subscribe from just £9.99 and never miss an issue.

Recommended for you

View all
Surge in renters losing their homes due to no-fault evictions ahead of ban: 'This is frightening'
Simon from Chatham has faced a section 21 eviction
Renting

Surge in renters losing their homes due to no-fault evictions ahead of ban: 'This is frightening'

Labour to crack down on rogue landlords claiming uncapped housing benefit for horror homes
housing secretary Angela Rayner
Housing benefit

Labour to crack down on rogue landlords claiming uncapped housing benefit for horror homes

Family of toddler who died from damp and mould issue grave warning to Labour over new housing law
Rochdale toddler Awaab Ishak died due to damp and mould in his social housing flat
Social housing

Family of toddler who died from damp and mould issue grave warning to Labour over new housing law

Students call for Tripadvisor-style website to shame landlords over damp and mouldy homes
Photo shows Bristol student Livy Naylor's bathroom, which was plagued by mould issues over the last year
RENTING

Students call for Tripadvisor-style website to shame landlords over damp and mouldy homes

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know
4.

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know