Labour was today urged to tackle the scourge of empty homes to tackle Britain’s housing crisis.
Across England as a whole, almost 265,000 dwellings are long-term vacant.
Yet, in parts of the country, close to 3 per cent of homes are empty, MailOnline can reveal.
Housing experts say converting the legion of vacant dwellings would help ease the shortage, which has priced millions out of owning their own homes and made rents rocket.
Sir Keir Starmer‘s government has promised to build 1.5million homes by the end of this parliament under their ‘bulldozer blitz’.
Critics have accused them on waging war on rural England, concerned that swathes of Green Belt land will be concreted over.
Yet ministers are on course to miss the target, sparking calls for them to instead turn their attention to the £70billion catalogue of abandoned properties.
This would help thousands of families who are trying to find an affordable home to rent or buy, and help tackle the soaring numbers in temporary accommodation, experts say.
Francesca Albanese, of homelessness charity Crisis, said: ‘Homelessness is rising across England, with record numbers of households stuck in temporary accommodation including a staggering 160,000 children.
The local authority with the most amount of long-term vacant homes was Kingston upon Thames, south west London, at 2.8%
The Isles of Scilly had the second-highest rate of long-term empty homes in the country at 2.3%
‘This is trapping people in poverty, as well as causing damage to their health and wellbeing.
‘Meanwhile, there are thousands of vacant properties standing empty that could be repurposed as genuinely affordable homes.
‘The sticking point is that there’s currently no incentive to encourage councils, who are already struggling financially, to bring empty properties and other unused buildings into use to tackle homelessness.’
Chris Bailey, for the campaign group Action on Empty Homes, believes councils need more powers, staff and financial resources to sort out the problem.
He said: ‘Long-term empty homes matter because the worst impacts of our housing crisis, while both shocking and potentially deadly, involve relatively small numbers of families (around 120,000) costing taxpayers billions in Temporary Accommodation costs.
‘Empty homes could cut this bill if utilised.’
The group argues that getting empty properties back in circulation is better than building new homes as it saves on land and avoids wasting carbon, helping to combat climate change.
However many of the long-term vacant homes are old, in need of investment and are nowhere near ready to be lived in.
Homes can also sit empty for other reasons. For instance, there may be a feud within a family after an owner has died because one relative doesn’t want another to benefit from any sale.
Councils already have extensive tools to bring empty homes back into use.
They can charge anywhere between 50 per cent to 300 per cent extra on council tax bills for homes left empty for more than two years.
Local authorities can get funding through the Affordable Homes Programme to help bring homes back into use. As a last resort, councils can use a Compulsory Purchase Order to buy a property without the owner’s permission.
Some empty homes in County Durham even had the words ‘rent me’ rubbed onto the front window last year
One home in the village of Horden in County Durham had a fake door plastered on its frontage alongside a boarded up window to fool criminals into thinking it was lived in
And through the New Homes Bonus, local authorities receive the same level of reward from central government for bringing an empty home back into use as building a new one.
But over the years there has been calls for the government to go further, for instance to cut VAT on refurbishment to help owners make homes ready for needy tenants, or to abolish council tax discounts and exemptions on empty homes.
The Local Government Association (LGA), the national membership body for local authorities in England and Wales, believes they must be given more power to reduce the number of empty homes.
Councillor Adam Hug, the housing spokesperson for the LGA said: ‘Long-term empty homes represent a missed opportunity to provide housing for those in need and those on housing waiting lists.
‘Councils share a collective national ambition to tackle local housing challenges.
‘However, they must be sufficiently empowered and funded to carry out work on this area.’
He argues that the qualifying period for Empty Dwelling Management Orders (EDMO) needs to be reduced to six months.
Currently, EDMOs can only be used on properties vacant for two years and linked to anti-social or criminal behaviour.
Sir Keir Starmer’s government has promised to build 1.5million homes by end of this parliament under their ‘bulldozer blitz’
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government data suggests 2.8 per cent of dwellings in Kingston-upon-Thames are long-term vacant.
For a home to be officially classed as ‘long-term empty’, it has to be liable for council tax, unfurnished, and no one has lived in it for over six months.
These statistics, accurate as of October, are then compared against the most up-to-date estimates of dwellings in each authority.
Vacancy figures above 2 per cent were seen in six other parts of the country – Isles of Scilly, Middlesbrough, Bolsover, Torbay, Preston, and Kensington and Chelsea.
When looking at raw numbers, Birmingham has the biggest supply of empty homes (5,406).
Nationwide, the figure has risen from 200,000 in 2016.
Although the figures say there are now just shy of 265,000 long-term vacant homes, some campaigners believe the true number is closer to 1 million.
However, the vast majority of them are not included in the official data because they have an exception.
For example, a property might not be included in the count if the owner is in care or has recently died and the property is held in probate (waiting to be transferred to a beneficiary).
Ms Rayner (pictured in Cambridgeshire with Keir Starmer in December) is trying to build 1.5million homes to help with the housing crisis
There are also homes that haven’t been unfurnished and empty for longer than six months but which may well be categorised as long-term empties soon.
Action on Empty Homes also estimates there are around 260,000 second homes – holiday or weekend homes left to sit empty for months.
As well as being a waste of resources, long-term empties can also become an issue for those in the local community.
Organised criminal gangs have seized empty homes to farm cannabis, unbeknownst to the owner. Teenage tearaways have also been known to break into them.
Locals might move out to avoid the problems, which can then have a knock-on effect on businesses that might struggle to survive without the custom.
However even if all of the 265,000 long-term empty homes were brought back into circulation, experts warn it would still not be enough.
A 2023 report published by the property experts Savills said it would account for approximately just one year’s worth of current housing delivery – falling short of the 300,000 minimum additional dwellings a year required to satisfy demand.
Mairi MacRae, of the housing charity Shelter, said: ‘Genuinely affordable social homes are in vanishingly short supply and the country is paying a heavy price.
‘A record 165,510 children are homeless in temporary accommodation often shoddy private rentals.
‘With more than 1.3million households stuck on social housing waiting lists, it’s incredibly frustrating to see homes sitting empty.
‘There are no quick fixes for a housing emergency of this scale, but acquiring and converting long-term empty homes is a cheap and sustainable way to get some of the social rent homes we need quickly.
‘The government must leave no stone unturned if it’s serious about ending homelessness. It must seize the opportunity to convert homes that sit empty for more than six months.’
A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: ‘We are determined to fix the housing crisis we have inherited, and we know that having too many empty homes in an area can have a significant impact on the local community.
‘That’s why councils have a range of powers to bring them back into use, including charging additional council tax on vacant properties and the ability to take over the management of long-term empty homes.’
