Government Announcement on Empty Homes

My optimism yesterday, was not misplaced. Today the government has published the full coalition agreement. You can see it here. In it is this very encouraging commitment “We will explore a range of measures to bring empty homes into use.”

What does all this mean for housing?

The housing business is moaning and groaning. The housing press is sounding downbeat too. Why? Apparently our new government hasn’t had much to say on housing. It barely mentioned the subject in the coalition agreement and it has downgraded the housing minister post so the incumbent will no longer attend cabinet. Does this matter? and what do we know about the government’s willingness to do anything about getting empty homes into use? I thought it time to have a look. Firstly lets have a look at the cast:

The Cabinet Minister in charge of local government, communities and housing is Eric Pickles a man who led Bradford Council in the early 1990s and will undoubtedly be an influential member of the government. Tim Williams says that Pickles’ experience is a double-edged sword for a man who will unquestionably wield it to the budget. He knows what he’s doing, but on the other hand may be too familiar with local government, and knows where the bodies are buried. It strikes me that these are both commendations for somebody who is in charge. Either way Pickles doesn’t look like a man to be messed with. When Hazel Blears was given this job a couple of years ago, there was an air of levity amongst commentators with few resisting the temptation to talk about her size. This time nobody has dared mention Mr Pickle’s size!

Grant Shapps has the distinction on being the housing minister who had the longest wait. As he is fond of saying, he shadowed four Labour housing ministers over nearly as many years before finally getting the job himself. So any criticism of inexperience is surely unfounded. He will be tasked with amongst other things replacing the national affordable housing programme, which funds housing associations, and overhauling the planning system.

Finally Liberal Democrat Andrew Stunnell, has been appointed a junior minister, probably with responsibility for housing . This may be a bit of a surprise, although he was Lib Dem housing shadow prior to Sarah Teather. And he is clearly highly regarded enough by his party leader to have formed part of the negotiating team that struck the coalition deal with the Conservatives.

By the way; much as it would have been great for her to be here too, Sarah Teather was appointed an Education Minister.

So will this rather motley crew be willing to do anything about getting empty homes into use. We know what they have said. In opposition Grant Shapps proposed changes to housing association funding to allow them to buy and lease private empty property. He also proposed powers for the public to force public owners of empty properties to get them into use. The Liberal Democrats proposed that empty homes should form a major part of a policy of increasing housing, pledging to get 250,000 empty homes into use.

All very different from the Labour government’s approach, which was to give local authorities powers to force private owners to put their houses in order

What strikes me is that the two coalition parties’ approaches aren’t so very different. They are both about encouraging housing associations to get involved in privately owned empty homes, they are both about incentives rather than coercion, and they both acknowledge that reused empty homes are a cost effective way of creating new housing. The fact that this issue wasn’t in the coalition agreement may in fact be a good sign. It may suggest that it isn’t contentious. If there are differences it is unlikely to be over approach, it’ll be scale. Will there be some minor tweaking to HCA funding, or will the government see this as a significant way of creating more homes?

Perhaps the answer to that lies in the influence of these new ministers. With due respect to Andrew Stunnell, this is likely to be a Conservative rather than Liberal democrat led issue. Although they have made far less play of it Conservative pledges to overhaul the funding system, reduce costs, and create a panning system that encourages rather than forces areas to accept more homes, could create a system that makes it a lot easier to get empty homes into use than build new homes. So perhaps the surprising conclusion is that whilst the housing industry may be moaning If you think that more should be done in getting homes into use there may be a lot to be very optimistic about.

Empty Homes and Manifestos

In the midst of manifesto week it might be good to look at what the main parties standing in the general election have said so far about empty homes.

Labour: no specific policy commitments

Conservatives: nothing in the manifesto, but policy on empty homes set out in 2009 housing green paper and 2009 empty property policy paper

Liberal Democrats: Costed manifesto commitment to bring 250,000 empty homes into use through grants and loans

Green Party: manifesto to be published tomorrow, but the party have already said that it will commit to halve the number of empty homes.

UKIP: Policy commitment to give greater compulsory purchase powers to local authorities to tackle empty homes

Plaid Cymru: Stated commitment to reducing empty home numbers and to reduce VAT to 5% on home refurbishment

SNP: no specific policy commitments

It’s good, in a curates egg sort of way, but I would of course, like to have seen more. This time next month at least one, and possibly more, of these parties will form the UK government and will be responsible for our county’s housing policy. Whoever that is will be faced with ensuring that the people of this country have somewhere decent to call home. For many years now, we have comforted ourselves that the house building industry will dutifully churn out new homes to match our demand for housing. All government had to do was fix the rules to make sure that the builders built a proportion that people on low incomes could afford.

But as with so many things the last couple of years have proved that systems that rely on perpetual growth don’t work when the economy turns down. What worked last decade probably won’t work in this one, that’s why we need new ideas and new ways to provide homes. Ideas like making the best use of the housing stock we have got, giving people the metaphorical and literal tools to create homes for themselves, creating new tenures of housing enabling people to rent and own homes in more flexible ways. The ideas are out there and have been adopted by many political parties. The next four weeks will see whether we will get a government with the imagination to introduce them.

more vacancy, but 3 ways to resolve it

Yesterday the Guardian reported that the housing vacancy rate is an enormous 25% higher than previously thought. That means that across the UK there may be 450,000 long-term empty homes. As they correctly point out this is enough to house a quarter of the families on housing waiting lists in this country. Now I know there are people that will say this is an oversimplification and Shelter will go on about needing to build new houses. Well are both are true but that doesn’t take away the significance of these findings.

Just imagine for a moment what would happen if a government introduced measures that really dealt with the problem. What would that do? Well, allowing for the difference between UK and England data , 450,000 homes would house 1.1 million people. As this graph shows, that’s enough to re-house every overcrowded household in England, everybody in temporary accommodation and every single homeless person. No mean feat!

Now, some will say, it’s just a one-off – homeless households just keep forming. Well true enough, but bringing empty homes back into use can carry on too. Once the 450,000 are back into use, there would no doubt be a whole load more homes that had become long –term empty. Getting those back into use would continue to address new housing need. Eventually of course the numbers of empty homes would run right down and as a source of new housing. But that’s a good thing. It would mean that the country was using it’s housing stock at optimum efficiency, which would in itself reduce the numbers of people falling into housing need, and massively reduce expenditure in dealing with the effects of the problem.

So what would a government have to do to really make an impact? We think just three actions would do it:

1. Offer a financial stimulus to the building industry by redirecting part of the national affordable housing programme towards refurbishment of empty homes. The Liberal Democrats estimate that £3.3bn (out of a £17bn programme) would bring 250,000 homes into use.
2. Encourage councils and public sector landlords to hand over surplus properties to local communities for them to bring back into use. And encourage them to help owners get their homes into use.
3. Give home owners incentive to refurbish their own empty homes by reducing VAT rates on refurbishment to 5% - The FMB estimates that this would have a net cost of £102m-£550m

It’s not difficult or unaffordable. Indeed all of the costs would offset other costs elsewhere. And it’s not politically unrealistic either. Between them the three main political parties endorse all of these proposals. We just have to hold them to it and encourage whoever forms the next government to introduce all three.

Tories to Scrap EDMOs

Grant Shapps made an entirely reasonable point yesterday that empty privately owned and empty publicly owned buildings are treated unequally. There are indeed powers for councils to bring privately owned homes into use, and the powers that people have to challenge empty publicly owned property are indeed weak. But to suggest, as he did yesterday, that the answer is to level the playing field by abolishing council powers seems to utterly miss the point. The problem isn’t that powers are unequal it is that not enough is done to address wasted publicly owned buildings. In fact the Conservatives have already proposed a much better answer to this problem. Last year in their housing green paper they proposed beefing up “PROD” powers to give the public the right to request the disposal of empty publicly owned buildings – and very welcome it was too. So let’s not have equally rubbish policies for tackling empty homes, Let’s try and have equally effective policies for getting all wasted properties back into use.

18 Empty Homes Announcements in a Year

Last week saw a significant announcement by the government that will see it invest £1million to develop schemes to bring empty homes into use in 17 areas of the country. It also sets up a national training programme to help councils across the country develop skills in bringing empty homes into use. It took six months of encouragement, lobbying and campaigning by us with help from the Chartered Institute of Housing, the HCA academy and officials at the CLG, and it’s great news.

But, I suspect, unless you’re directly affected, announcements like this probably just come and go. If they do, consider this, this is the eighteenth major announcement on the issue in the last twelve months. Look at them together and I think that cumulatively it’s beginning to add up to something much larger. There is an emerging consensus that the job of ensuring that everybody gets a decent home is not just about building new homes. We can’t afford to build them all, and it’s better for communities if we keep people living in them.

If the last 18 announcements just came and went for you, here they all are:


1. Greater Flexibility on HCA funding to allow housing associations to buy empty homes – Party leader David Cameron launches Conservatives Empty Property Rescue Plan with Empty Homes Agency February 2009

2. More funding to assist housing associations renovate empty homes – New Conservative policy launched in Empty Property Rescue Plan February 2009

3. Allow non-priority need homeless people to self renovate empty homes with the possibility of equity stake reward. – New Conservative policy launched in Empty Property Rescue Plan February 2009

4. Equalise VAT rates on new build homes and costs of renovating empty homes –New Liberal Democrat policy launched in speech by shadow chancellor Vince Cable with Empty Homes Agency February 19 2009

5. Amend commercial property rate relief rules to allow owners of empty commercial property used temporarily as housing to continue to claim rate relief- New Liberal Democrat policy launched in speech by shadow chancellor Vince Cable February 2009

6. Introduce a Repair and Renewal loan scheme for owners of empty properties if they agree to lease them for at least five years to housing associations as social housing. New Liberal Democrat policy launched in speech by shadow chancellor Vince Cable February 2009

7. Allow housing associations and local authorities to use funding from the Homes and Communities Agency to refurbish newly purchased private empty homes; Liberal Democrats- New Liberal Democrat policy launched in speech by shadow chancellor Vince Cable February 2009

8. Make £40m available in HCA grant for short-life (‘property guardian’) housing. Liberal Democrats- New Liberal Democrat policy launched in speech by Vince Cable February 2009

9. Announcement of greater support for local authorities to help get empty homes into use – CLG press release quoting then housing minister Margaret Beckett – March 2009

10. Announcement that funding would be made available from National Affordable Housing Programme would be made available for schemes to bring empty homes into use Speech by Trevor Beattie Director of Policy and Strategy Homes and Communities Agency at Empty Homes Agency Conference – March 2009

11. Equal funding available for housing associations to renovate empty homes as for new build schemes. Policy announcement by Sir Bob Kerslake Chief Executive of Homes and Communities Agency appearing on BBC Breakfast TV with The Empty Homes Agency. – March 2009

12. Requirement for all government bodies and agencies to publish details of empty properties they own. – New Conservative policy launched in Conservatives housing green paper June 2009

13. An extension of the PROD powers allowing the public to request the disposal of empty property owned by councils government departments and quangos New Conservative policy launched in Conservatives housing green paper June 2009

14. Sequential approach for creating homes giving priority for reusing empty homes – new Green party policy in speech by party leader Caroline Lucas July 2009

15. Self Start Housing allowing low income families to self renovate empty homes where regeneration schemes have stalled - New Liberal Democrat policy launched by shadow housing minister Sarah Teather in conference speech September 2009

16. North Circular Road investment scheme announced by Mayor of London Boris Johnson. £57 million pledged for 80 empty homes to be bought and renovated for social housing – September 2009

17. Commitment to invest £1.4billion to bring 250,000 empty homes back into use New Liberal Democrat policy launched by party leader Nick Clegg with Empty Homes Agency January 2010

18. Government Pledges £1million investment in seventeen councils to help bring empty homes back into use. Announcement by housing minister John Healey. February 2010

EDMOs and Tory councils

Caroline Spellman has been asking a lot of questions about Empty Dwelling Management Orders recently. That’s a good thing, in a few months she could well be the minister responsible for them. I’ve met her a couple of times and talked to her about them. And I have to say that I feel fairly sure that she just doesn’t like them. In fact in her conference speech she compared being served an EDMO to getting fined for leaving your rubbish bin out on the wrong day- in other words - an unnecessary interference by the state. Well, we may just have to agree to disagree on that. But what comes over to me about Caroline Spellman is that she is a thoughtful woman and a pragmatic politician. So hopefully the answer to her latest question will make her think. In total just fifteen councils have used EDMOs. Of those twelve are Conservative controlled councils and just three Labour. Philosophically EDMOs may not be a very Tory idea, but practically they seem to be useful to Tory councils. Pragmatically I hope she sees that the legislation is fine just as it is.

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.

Who owns these!

Never mind about the article for the moment or indeed the handsome boy in the foreground of the picture. Just look what’s behind him! -A whole road of empty houses. This is Windsor Walk in Camberwell in London and these houses belong to the NHS or at least we think they do. After five months of discussion, the South London and Maudsley Hospital Trust have, a few days ahead of an important meeting with them, decided that they don’t own them after all or at least they don’t think they do. It’s becoming all too clear how these properties have been allowed to get into this appaling state, and by the way why the Conservatives chose them as an example of what needs to change - to front thier policy on empty property.

A failure to tackle empty homes? perhaps, but no lack of ideas

Shadow housing minister Grant Shapps strongly criticised what he called the government's failure to tackle empty homes in Inside Housing this week.
(The government) he said “have utterly failed to tackle the glut of empty homes we have sitting empty while families are desperate for a roof over their heads.” Is he right?

With political parties all furiously putting together their election manifestos this might be a good point to look at what each of the main parties have done and what they promise on empty homes.

First the Government. Since it’s been in power it’s actually done quite a lot.
It amended VAT rules so that works on properties empty for two years or more are charged at a reduced VAT rate.
It introduced the housing market renewal programme that was tasked with reducing vacancy in the most depressed housing markets in the England
It has introduced a capital allowance scheme that allows owners of shops to offset tax on the costs of refurbishing empty flats above.
It introduced flexibility for councils to set their own council tax discount on empty homes.
It introduced empty dwelling management orders allowing councils to take over the management of long term empty homes.
But the success has been mixed. Since they have been in power empty home numbers have reduced significantly, but they have crept up again in the last three years. Take up of tax relief schemes is low, 45% of councils still offer full discounts on empty homes and to date there have only been 24 EDMOs.

What is it saying now? Over the last year the government’s comments on empty homes have been very much geared towards making EDMOs work. It has run a seminar for councils and has endorsed the EHA’s guidance on EDMOs. There have been no new policy promises

The Conservatives haven’t of course been in government for eleven years, but locally Conservative administrations in London Birmingham and Kent have devoted attention and resource to councils to tackle the issue. There’s been significant success in Birmingham and Kent, but it is too early to judge what’s happening in London. In their recent housing green paper the Conservatives promissed two measures to tackle empty homes :
The empty property rescue scheme would divert affordable housing resources to reusing empty homes, and would temporarily reduce requirements to encourage take up.
Extending and reinvigorating the PROD (public request ordering disposal) scheme giving power to people to request the sale of long term empty publicly owned buildings and extending it to all government bodies and quangos.

The Liberal Democrats have set out several measures in recent months to tackle empty homes.
Equalise VAT rates on renovation and new-build.
Amend commercial property rate relief rules to allow owners of empty commercial property used temporarily as housing to continue to claim rate relief.
Introduce a Repair and Renewal loan scheme for owners of empty properties if they agree to lease them for at least five years to housing associations as social housing.
Allow housing associations and local authorities to use funding from the Homes and Communities Agency to refurbish newly purchased private empty homes.
Make £40m available in Homes and Communities Agency grant for short-life housing.

So is Grant Shapps right? Well that’s your call. But the significant thing is that all parties have a lot to say on empty homes. In the run up to the last general election none of the parties even bothered mentioning it. The empty homes problem may be getting worse, but at least, now there is a real debate on how to tackle it.

Rubbish Response to Empty Promise Petition

When think tank Policy Exchange published its Cities Unlimited report last year, advocating abandoning regeneration in much of the north, there was uproar. Even David Cameron who had previously been a committed Policy Exchange fan was forced to call it “barmy” “Insane and complete rubbish” John Prescott described it as “the most insulting and ignorant policy I've ever heard”.

So if that idea was so awful, what exactly is the difference with this? Today 10 Downing Street published it’s response to the Inside Housing Empty Promise campaign petition

In response to the general point that the Prime Minister should help reduce the number of empty homes, the government say they agree, but then back-pedal a bit by saying
“Areas with high concentrations of empty homes often do not correspond with areas of high housing need.”

On the need for targeting investment at the problem, the government say they are doing it already but then say:
“this type of approach is not always appropriate as a way of dealing with long-term empty properties in need of repair. Very often it is more expensive to refurbish homes to the standard we expect than to build them from scratch. Homes also have to be of the right type and size and in the right place. The empty homes figures assume that the empty homes are where the need lies, which is not necessarily the case.”

So what should we make of this as a statement of government policy? A summary might be empty homes are only worth reusing if they’re cheaper to refurbish than building new homes, and only worth doing if they’re somewhere with established housing demand.
Not much ambition to regenerate our inner cities in that , not much ambition to help resolve the blight of empty homes in people’s neighbourhoods either, and no apparent regard for the environmental consequences. If Cities Unlimited was rubbish, so I’m afraid, is this.

Conservative Empty Homes Crusade

There are plenty of times over the last few years when I wouldn’t have believed it possible, but yesterday’s Financial Times reported the Conservative leader crusading against empty homes. It had strange echoes of the Conservative backed Crusdae against EDMOS two years ago. But with the Conservative empty property rescue plan launched on Friday, I think the party has genuine reason to claim its ideas are now ahead of the government on empty homes.

The issue at stake is the rulebook on grants for housing associations to buy property. The truth is they are looking distinctly out of date, geared as they are towards housing associations acquiring newly built property from developers. Over the last few years most housing associations have acquired housing as part of the planning gain agreements developers have to reach with councils. Developers have had to make 20 –50% of their houses available for affordable housing. Housing associations have been able to claim grants to help them buy. This means most housing associations have only been taking on brand new houses and flats; so nobody really noticed when the Housing Corporation withdrew purchase and repair grants about five years ago. It meant it was that was no longer possible for housing associations to claim grant for repair costs. Buying up and doing up old run down homes was now much more expensive than buying new homes.

Suddenly over the last few months, since the recession hit, new housing developments are being wound up or wound down and that nice source of new affordable housing has gone. Housing associations now have to look elsewhere for new homes. With empty homes increasing it seems obvious to me that this is where they should be looking. I have been calling on the government and the Homes and Communities Agency (HACA) to change the rules to allow housing associations to claim grant for buying and renovating run-down empty homes, so far to no effect. So that is why I welcome the new Conservative policy. They get it, and have proposed a relaxation of grant rules that would address this exact point. Of course this doesn’t add up to a complete policy, but it’s a good start and there are the germs of other good ideas here too.

I was fortunate enough to meet David Cameron on Friday and made this very point to him. I said we needed action on reforming VAT to make refurbishment of empty homes more cost effective and we need more assistance to encourage the proliferation of short life housing schemes. His answer was this announcement was just stage one of the Conservative policy there would be more in stage two. I intend to hold him too it.