17th
Jun 2024
Sky News and a housing campaigner’s joint investigation has found that there are around 33,993 vacant council properties just in England alone which is the highest number of ‘empties’ since 2009.
These include a number of ‘homes’ which have been sealed off on a Lambeth estate for more than twenty years and in the neighbouring Borough of Southwark there are 144 flats in a boarded up tower block which have been left empty since 2015.
The housing campaigner Kwajo Tweneboa, who has been working with Sky recently tweeted the Top 10 councils with the highest numbers of publicly owned empty homes.
A PRS online media service has now revealed the political parties that run the Top 10 councils with the highest number of empty public owned residences:
- Melton - 1,810; (Independent and Labour coalition)
- Southwark - 1,588; (Labour)
- Ealing - 1,183; (Labour)
- Sheffield - 946; (Labour largest party, no overall majority)
- Lambeth - 726; (Labour)
- Newham - 688; (Labour)
- Gateshead - 618; (Labour)
- Leeds - 589; (Labour)
- Southampton - 577; (Labour)
- Nottingham - 511. (Labour)
A representative of a trade association responded by tweeting: “Appalling. And to think these local authorities are in charge of regulating private rented homes when they literally cannot get their own houses in order.”
Campaigner Tweneboa told Sky News: "You've got people sleeping on the streets. You've got people who are sleeping in garages and storage containers. Yet we've got thousands of homes sat empty, council homes up and down the country, which aren't being used.
"It makes no sense whatsoever. It's a complete dereliction of duty and failure to care for those that need it most."
The Local Government Association lays the blame squarely on insufficient funding for councils and its spokesperson told Sky News that in many cases "the council doesn't have the money in place to be able to refurbish them and bring them back into use as council homes".
Lambeth council told Sky News: "Lambeth is committed to bringing empty homes back into use as quickly as possible. The majority of our empty properties have been vacant for less than six months."
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