Over 27,000 privately owned homes in Scotland have been empty for 6 months or more. Kristen Hubert, National Manager for the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership explains how low cost local efforts can have big local impacts. She also calls for further action…
When people ask me about the work I do, they often focus on the ‘why’ of it all. Why would someone leave their property lying empty, making them no money and deteriorating in safety and value? The truth is there are as many reasons as there are people, and it’s usually about the mind-set of the owner rather than some inherent problem with the property or its location. In a nutshell, the most common reasons are a lack of information about what can be done or a lack of motivation/capacity to act. But the more interesting question for me is – so what are we going to do about it? With over 27,000 long term empty private sector homes in Scotland and a housing waiting list of over 5 times that, these properties surely need to be part of the housing supply solution.
The Scottish Empty Homes Partnership was established in 2010 with funding from Scottish Government and found a home for itself at Shelter Scotland. Since this time we’ve expanded both the size of our team and the scope of our work, but our focus has remained the same. We believe that it is local efforts, primarily by dedicated Empty Homes Officers working out of local authorities that bring empty homes back into use.
We’ve worked hard to sell the benefits of empty homes. In terms of renovation costs you can on average bring an empty home back into use for between £6k-£25k, compared to £100k+ for a new build property. That renovation cost would be borne by the owner, and some empty homes don’t need renovation at all to be brought back into use. We’ve also pushed for funding streams and council tax powers to make it easier for local officers to be as effective as possible.
At the end of the day though it has been the people power that has brought most empty homes back into use. Many owners just need a bit of hand holding and someone to challenge their assumptions. Currently just over half of Scotland’s Local Authorities have at least one member of staff dedicated to Empty Homes work. When we opened up shop there were none. As we have seen the recruitment and skilling up of Empty Homes Officers providing targeted advice to owners, we’ve started to see homes coming back into use. It’s our job to make their jobs easier by providing training, tools and advice. These officers don’t work in a vacuum of course, and they rely on council colleagues from planning to environmental health and building control to help them problem solve solutions that work.
Last year, councils reported to us that they brought 560 empty homes back into use and we’ve calculated the combined value of these properties as £93m – that is a huge influx into the supply chain that had been lying dormant. We know this won’t solve the housing crisis but we do believe there is no excuse for not using existing assets to their fullest when there is such a housing shortage.
Of course what we would like to see is all councils with at least one dedicated Empty Homes Officer – and ideally on permanent contracts. We know that Empty Homes Officers bring in more than the cost of their salary in terms of debt collection, increased council tax (empty homes often receive council tax discounts and exemptions in their first year empty), and community benefits that are much harder to quantify including improved safety and security, increased spend in the community from more residents and jobs for local contractors.
We really do believe that working with owners proactively and positively is the best way to bring empty homes back into use, but we also believe councils and communities should have effective enforcement powers as a last resort where empty homes are really having negative impacts on local communities. We support the recommendation of the Land Reform Review Group that a Compulsory Sale Order be introduced to force the sale of empty land and property that has been unused for 3 years.
We also want to see a larger variety of funding streams for different types of players to get into the game of bringing empty homes back into use. Currently, funding streams like the Scottish Empty Homes Loan Fund or the Town Centre Empty Homes Fund are focused on a small sub-section of empty homes and empty home owners. We want to see a variety of financial incentives. For instance, there is nothing currently available to encourage the purchase and restoration of an empty home by a first time buyer. There is also a gap when it comes to the worst empty homes that have fallen into serious disrepair that need more than a small loan or grant to make them economically viable to bring back into use. This is where we need to see the issue of empty homes as something wider than just a housing supply issue. Empty homes have impacts on community wellbeing that go far beyond the standard mathematics of housing supply, and this needs to be taken into account when it comes to funding.
The Scottish Empty Homes Conference taking place in November is where we’ll be fleshing a lot of this out with interested professionals from a range of backgrounds. This year, the theme of our conference is Local Effort, Local Impact and the key note speaker, George Clarke, UK Empty Homes Adviser and TV Architect, will be sharing some of his lessons learned from visiting communities with empty homes problems form across the country.
The conference is THE empty homes event of the year for empty homes practitioners, senior council officers, elected members and anyone with an interest in private sector empty homes work from Housing Associations to landlords and community groups. We would also welcome input and ideas from the Planning and Building Control sectors.
For more information, please visit: http://scotland.shelter.org.uk/housing_policy/empty_homes/scottish_empty_homes_conference_2015
Kristen Hubert
National Manager
Scottish Empty Homes Partnership
Tel: 0344 515 1941
emptyhomes@shelter.org.uk
http://scotland.shelter.org.uk/housing_policy/empty_homes
www.twitter.com/shelterscotland