More Homes Fewer Empty Buildings

Policy Exchange is a think tank that is occasionally brilliant but sometimes bonkers. Who can forget their Cities Unlimited report from two years ago which advocated abandoning northern cities. It achieved the remarkable feat of uniting David Cameron and John Prescott in condemnation. Between them they described it as “barmy”, “the most insulting and ignorant policy I've ever heard” ,“Insane and complete rubbish”


But their latest report "More Homes Fewer Empty Buildings"  for me falls into the brilliant category. In fact it is one of those ideas that is so simple you wonder why nobody has come up with it before.  Allow people to convert empty commercial space into homes without the need for planning permission.  At the moment changing the use of a building into a home requires "change of use" planning permission. Not only is applying for this a bit of a bureaucratic obstacle course, the chance of success is low. Council planning departments are keen to protect employment spaces. A reasonable an important function you might think. But they make no distinction between operating sites that are actually employing people and vacant ones that employ nobody and have little prospect of ever employing anybody again. The truth is the planning system cannot protect employment, that is a function of the economy, it tries to do so by protecting sites, but it is poor proxy that has knock on effects causing redundant offices and rows of boarded up shops. As the report points out, even in the most economically active part of the UK, the South East of England, commercial vacancy rates are running at 17%. The same part of the country that demand and need for housing outstrips supply most dramatically.

As the report says  "We have a significant housing shortage at the same time that a large number of commercial properties are vacant or partly so. Not only is this a prime cause of urban blight, but the shortage of housing, combined with the current low rate of new house building, places a huge and potentially unsustainable burden on young people an family life."
The answer is elegantly simple. Commercial buildings that have been empty for more than a year should be allowed to convert into housing without change of use planning permission.

Say it With Flowers

There are places in Liverpool that make your heart leap and others that make you want to weep. These two adjacent roads in Granby manage to do both at the same time. Granby is the very essence of a deprived community, on almost any indicator of poverty it does almost unbelievably badly. 94% of children living in poverty 70% of the resident Somali population are unemployed, cancer and heart disease rates are 250% of the national average. Why you might think would anybody want to live here? With over 11% of the houses long term empty, it might appear that they don’t. But nothing in Liverpool is ever simple. Problems have been simmering here for many years. 25 years ago they blew up. This is where the Toxteth riots took place. Last week, walking along these streets I was stopped by a life long resident. “This is their punishment for the riots” she said commenting on the row of bricked up vacant houses on her street “For daring to protest they’ve decided to grind the life out of this area.” She claimed that a deal between council and housing association meant that every house that becomes empty is bricked up rather than re-let. “We’re all getting old here” she said “in a few years we’ll all be gone, then they’ll come in and flatten all the houses.” It was enough to make grown man want to weep. But the resident’s response to the perceived war being waged against them was unexpected and extraordinary. Residents had painted the brieze blocks that replaced the windows on empty homes in Cairns Street and Beaconsfield Street. There were brightly painted curtains where windows had once been, a painted cat peeping out onto the road, butterflies, even a Tuscan castle. The front gardens of abandoned houses were neatly tended, along the length of the street every conceivable receptacle had been used as plant pots; car tyres, a water tank, a couple of old trailers, even a small chest of drawers overflowing with flowers. Most of the houses in these roads were empty, but none were unloved. In the circumstances where most communities would have given up, this one was showing a strength that truly made the heart leap.

Sows ears and silk purses

It’s hard to believe it now, but in the 1970s when I grew up the glamour football team to support was Ipswich town. It happened to be my hometown club, but their support spread far and wide. The team was filled with well-mannered, clean-cut role-models like Paul Mariner, George Burley and Mick Mills. But if you were a bit rebellious and liked your footballers cut a bit rough, there was nobody better than Eric Lazenby Gates; a grizzled and aggressive forward who always managed to look a mess but play with astonishing skill. He was the type of man who even if you dressed him in a Saville Row dinner suit would somehow still look like a tramp.

When I was ten my parents paid for me to go on a summer football course, coached by Ipswich Town players. I found myself in a group coached by Gates. His thick Northeast accent proved too impenetrable for most of the boys, but with Geordies in the family I understood it perfectly. So did my parents who asked me to be moved into another group to get away from the torrent of smutty jokes and filthy language that were part of his coaching style.

Eric Gates disappeared back to the North East with a transfer to Sunderland a few years later and for many years I thought nothing more of him. That was until earlier this week when I found myself outside the house he was brought up in, in the ex colliery town of Ferryhill in county Durham.

Ferryhill has the curse that has befallen many so-called regeneration hot spots. Its renaissance has been put-off or petered-out. The plans were ambitious. In 2006 a ten year plan was announced by the council that would have seen 400 hundred ex miners cottages demolished and hundreds of new homes built in their place. The works started with the flattening of a chunk of houses in streets named after the great industrial men of their day Stephenson, Watt and Faraday.  But then nothing, the money ran out and with the 2008 market crash, investment slipped away. Far from regenerating the area, the talk of demolition caused, those that could, to move away. Today Gates’ house stands among many others empty and forlorn overlooking a few acres of wasteland.  There is no plan B for Ferryhill, or indeed the many other similar areas where ambitious renewal plans have stalled or been shelved half way through. As we await the Comprehensive Spending Review, there seems little prospect that help will come from elsewhere, or that budgets will be replenished to enable stalled regeneration plans to start up again. The age of demolition and rebuild is, for now at least, over.    

But all should not be lost. These houses could be homes again. Creative thinking like the approaches used in Salford or Anfield can remodel terraced housing and make it appealing and attractive to people looking for homes. Regenerating an area doesn’t have to mean flattening it and starting again.  The great news for places like Ferryhill is this approach is cheaper and therefore more financially viable than the plans that have been abandoned. Places can reinvent themselves, just like people. Eric Gates today earns his living travelling around the Northeast as an after dinner speaker , dressed no-doubt in a Saville row dinner suit.

This could really make things better

It doesn’t happen that often, but there are moments when it is possible to really change things for the better. In amongst the bleak public spending news, it may surprise you to hear that one such moment is upon us. Before the politicians go home for the summer we are calling on the government to say what it is going to do to fulfil its commitment on empty homes. And we’re asking you to say what you think too.

In May the coalition government said "We will explore a range of measures to bring empty homes into use."

We know that the work is underway. Officials are exploring measures now. What they conclude and what the government decides will either be the most significant moment for years, or a squandered opportunity for helping create homes out of empty property. Of course we want it to be the former. In a dream scenario here’s what could happen:

• The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) changes grant rules giving housing associations a real incentive to buy and refurbish empty homes. 
• The government confirms funding, and for the first time in years housing associations en-masse start purchase and repair and rehab schemes creating new affordable homes out of empty property.
• The HCA gives greater flexibility so that homelessness charities and other community groups can refurbish empty homes too. Hundreds of new not-for- profit schemes start
• The Government helps local authorities to act by rewarding them for getting long-term empty homes returned to use. Councils start realising the true value of reusing vacant homes and increase the help they offer to property owners.
• The Government and public sector landlords open up their records on vacant property and agree to transfer their own surplus vacant properties to local communities for them to bring back into use. They give powers to the public to force the sale where the public sector drags its feet.

These actions would make a stunning difference enabling new homes to spring up out of empty buildings. It’s achievable and it’s affordable. But we need the government to act.

Next week you can have your say. The HCA debate “how do we maximise the use of empty homes?” starts on 12th July. Please take part. Watch the videos, and leave your comments and ideas here. It could really help make things better.

PROD this!

Three years ago, after a visit to the road I described this as the most dispiriting case the Empty Homes Agency had ever dealt with. Four large and imposing Victorian villas overlooking one of Liverpool’s great parks had been left to rot and deteriorate to the point that they were virtually falling down. What made it so dispiriting, was the owner of the property was the very organisation we expect to look to resolve problems like this: The local council. The houses were purchased by compulsory purchase by the council at the beginning of the decade to improve them. But nothing of the sort happened. Residents were moved out and the decline set in. First fly tippers used the gardens as rubbish dumps, looters broke in and stole the architectural features, vandals set about damaging what was left, and then last year somebody set fire to them. Local residents decided not to stand for it, and after numerous unsuccessful requests to the council to deal with the houses, the Friends of Newsham Park used a little used legal power to request action. A PROD (public request ordering disposal) was served on the secretary of state (at the time Ruth Kelly) requesting that the properties were sold. Ruth Kelly agreed, but gave the council a final year-long chance to sort it out. As is the way with housing ministers, by the time the year was up she was no longer the minister. Another round of campaigning by residents finally got Hazel Blears to make a decision, it turned out to be another final chance for the council of another year. By the time this year had expired she had gone too. Another year of hand wringing by civil servants followed after which further campaigning forced a decision from the present minister John Denham. He acknowledged all the problems caused, apologised and then announced that the case was closed.

Politicians of all colours talk of the importance of communities being empowered. Indeed the ministers I mention call themselves Secretary of State for Communities, and the civil servants I mention are in something called the Community empowerment directorate. But when, as in this case, a community took them up on their offer, the response was embarrassment and obscuration. Councils have (in my view correctly) been granted powers to compulsorily purchase land and buildings to improve conditions for the community. But where that fails communities have the right to demand redress. This community was let down first by its council and then by its government. I said it was dispiriting! But ironically there’s something uplifting here too. Despite all the obstacles the community didn’t give up and indeed still hasn’t. I’m a true believer that persistence pays. The desire to get something done is almost always greater than the desire to stop it. In the end if they are right they will prevail. I believe they are and they will.

House for a pound

The story of houses being sold for a pound in Newcastle on Tyne has become almost legendry. I couldn’t count the number of people who have asked me whether you can still buy one. You can’t! Or the number of TV producers who think it would make a great subject for a TV programme. It would! So I’m almost ashamed to say that it wasn’t until last week that I actually went to see them. The picture is Mr Naeem the proud owner of one of the houses. Mr Naeem in fact bought two Tyneside flats for 50p each six years ago and knocked them into one house, as did his five nearest neighbours. The result is remarkable. In 2004 Mr Naeem’s road in North Benwell was struggling. There had been riots, there was a worryingly high vacancy rate, and many other indicators that people had lost confidence in the area.

Selling the ten flats was an inspired idea. Mr Naeem and his neighbours signed up to stay in the area for five years and help get the property into good condition. The ethos of these new residents was the reverse of what was happening to the area. They had a stake and a hope that the area was going to get better. The remarkable result appears to be that when enough people think like this it becomes self-fulfilling. North Benwell today is not an area without problems, but it is a normal functioning residential area in one of the UK’s finest cities. There are no riots, crime has dropped dramatically, and the vacancy rate is no worse than any normal city suburb. Of course many other things have been done to help, not least a city warden service that looks out for people and sorts small problems out quickly. But there are plenty of other similar places where these services don’t work. Selling houses for a pound was a brave move by the property owner – local housing association Home housing But the results have paid off handsomely. What they have bought for their investment is hope and confidence the two most valuable assets in regeneration.

A truely edifying spending cut

Being a property anorak I couldn’t stop myself dragging my family around the Peckham House this weekend. It’s not empty, in fact it was full to bursting with visitors for the London open house weekend. Some of you may remember this remarkable house as one of the stars of the Grand Designs tv series. The extraordinary owners managed to create a house in the most unpromising site imaginable, with planning restrictions that would have lead most to think that there was no chance of being allowed to build anything. But not only did they gain permission, they built a house that is pure joy, for the price of a very ordinary flat.

It is that imaginative thinking and that tenacious determination that we need more of if more homes are going to be created out of empty properties. It is easy to see why it is difficult to return empty homes to use, and easy to see how it would be expensive to try, but with imagination and tenacity almost anything is possible. Today I have ben talking to two great examples of both. Urban Infill’s idea is to fill not just the voids in buildings, but the voids around and above them too. You might think of this as filling the missing teeth in the smile of a streetscape

For sheer tenacity look no further than Phoenix housing cooperative. I’ve written about them before, but their latest project in Bow East London shows how tenacity and hard work can overcome huge financial shortfalls. The four flats that they have asked me to open this Friday had been abandoned buy their owner because they were uneconomic to reuse. But for a sixth of the cost Phoenix have brought them back into use
More imagination and tenacity was called for by the Audit Commission last week. It concluded that councils had become too focussed on building new homes at the expense of reusing old ones. It said that by tackling just 5% of empty homes councils could save a staggering £500billion from their homelessness costs. A rather more edifying public spending cut than some have been suggesting over the last few days

Street Level Regeneration

The first week of September still has that back-to-school feel, even though it’s more than twenty years since I had any personal experience. It has at least been back to business this week with meetings with the housing minister and both shadow housing ministers. The word that seems to be on the tip of all of their tongues is localism, although strangely none actually dare utter it.

Type Localism into Google news and it will helpfully flash up a timeline chart showing the occurrence of the word over the last 130 years. Remarkably it was common parlance in the 1880s in New Zealand, but fell away for more than a centaury to suddenly spring back into use in the middle of this decade.

Localism, at its simplest, means political control at the lowest local level. This week Grant Shapps articulated how this concept would work for housing under a Conservative government. Those who had thought localism meant giving power back to councils were in for a shock. He meant more local than that. Indeed the phrase he used was “street level regeneration”

No doubt there will be different ideas of what that means. But this week I have visited a remarkable example in East London. Phoenix housing cooperative have taken on four flats that had effectively been abandoned by their housing association owner. Deemed too expensive to renovate they had been left empty for years. Using a team of local volunteers made up of unemployed and homeless young people supervised and trained by an experienced site manager, Phoenix have managed to get the flats back up to standard at a fifth of the price estimated by the housing association. In a couple of weeks they will become homes again to local people otherwise priced out of the housing market. It’s one remarkable little example, but this is street level regeneration, and if this is localism in action I’m all in favour.