Empty homes: Vacant and dilapidated property initiative
Empty homes: The facts
Empty homes cause problems. They can attract vandals and burglars; or get overgrown and filled with rubbish. If this happens, they soon become an eyesore that is bad for the street and the value of surrounding properties.
Run-down homes can also become a safety risk and pose a danger to children. Empty homes bring down an area and threaten the health of the local community.
In 2000, The Empty Homes Agency reports that there are 748, 778 empty homes in England. This figure represents 3.3% of the total. In 2009 the figure is reported as being 651,993 which is 2.9% of the total.
The Government has set targets for councils to reduce the problem of empty homes. These include:
- reducing the percentage of empty homes to 3% or below;
- 60% of new housing should be built on brownfield land or by the conversion of existing buildings by 2008.
In April 2009, Liverpool had 14,906 vacant properties (or 6.9% of its total). This was over double the national average. Of these, 13,054 (6.1%) had been empty for over 6 months.
What is the council doing about it?
Like many other northern cities, Liverpool has a problem in that it has too many pre-1919 terraced homes. These homes do not meet modern standards and are unpopular.
The Housing Market Renewal Initiative (HMRI) is tackling our failing housing market in the north and eastern suburbs of the city. This involves the compulsory purchase of abandoned and unwanted empty homes. After purchase they will be renovated, sold, or demolished and replaced with new homes.
However, HMRI does not cover everywhere in the city. There are many other houses in private ownership across our suburbs which are vacant. And they are not necessarily traditional pre-1919 terraced houses.
In April 2000, the government introduced the Empty Homes Best Value Performance Indicator. We record how many private sector homes that are empty at April 1 each year. At the start of the next year, we count how many have become occupied again as a result of our actions.
What is the Vacant and Dilapidated Property Initiative?
This initiative allows us to take effective action against owners of vacant and run down properties. The main complaints which we receive about empty homes are:
- build up of rubbish;
- infestations of vermin, in particular rats;
- risk of injury to children and others who enter the building;
- ruined and neglected buildings being an eyesore and having a negative effect on the neighbourhood; and
- drug users getting into the property and leaving hypodermic syringes.
We know that such buildings have both a bad impact on the local environment, and cause blight in certain areas. This can affect of effort to regenerate Liverpool.
The high numbers of empty homes in our city is mainly due to econmonic and demographic (population) factors. For example, when people get better jobs, they want to live somewhere else. We (and others) have been trying to deal with these problems by running various regeneration strategies over the last few years.
Some success came through Housing Renewal Areas; or by using Compulsory Purchase Orders; House Renovation Grants; or through buying and improvements by Housing Associations. However, there were still too many that we had missed. It was clear that we needed a different approach.
Our new approach uses powers with which we can force owners to think about the long term future of their property and bring them back into use.
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Where we have tidied the buildings or have made them safe, we can recover costs by forcing the sale of the property through the Law of Property Act 1925.
This procedure has two main benefits in that:
(a) the Council recovers its costs and;
(b) a new owner is more likely to bring the property back into use.
Liverpool City Council was one of the first cities to recognise this problem and to provide a solution. Our "Vacants Initiative Team" was formed within the Public Protection Division. It was launched in 1993. Since that time it has gathered momentum, resources and expertise.
Approximately 10,000 vacant premises have now been dealt with since the start of the initiative.
In some cases this may take years of work before a property is reoccupied. The process can unfortunately be complex, and require a great deal of resources. However, some cases can be effectively dealt with in a relatively short period of time.
In 2008/9 the Vacants Team handled over 1,400 complaints and served over 600 statutory notices to remedy unsatisfactory conditions. In addition a total of 479 properties were brought back in to use and 10 were demolished.
However, there is still more to do and we become aware of new empty premises daily.
What should you do if a vacant property near you is causing concern?
You can report your concern about vacant property to:-
- Correspondence Address: The Vacants initiative community services team, Public Protection Division, Municipal Buildings Dale Street, Liverpool L2 2DH
- Telephone: 0151 233 3001
- Email: environmental.health@liverpool.gov.uk