Press release: Big rise in long term empty homes in Winchester
Submitted by Alison Craig on 21 March 2011 - 4:16am
The number of long term empty homes in Winchester has risen by almost a quarter in just 9 months. This news has emerged as the City waits in suspense for the Secretary of State’s decision on Barton Farm, a proposal to build 2000 new homes on the last remaining ‘green wedge’ of the City.
In response to Freedom of Information requests by Winchester Green Party, the Council has disclosed that in June last year, there were 118 long term empty properties in City wards, and now there are 146, an increase of 28 properties.
‘These properties must be brought back into use as an urgent priority’, says Alison Craig, Green Party local election candidate for the St Bartholomew Ward. ‘It is a dreadful waste of existing housing stock to have it standing empty.
‘There are no longer any excuses for the City Council to sit on its hands about empty homes. The Council has been allocated almost half a million pounds in the New Homes Bonus. We urge them to spend it wisely on renovating homes, making them energy-efficient, and improving public transport across the District.
‘The Council Tax discount on empty properties must be abolished and they should also be rated the same – otherwise there is a perverse incentive to keep properties empty.’
Notes to editors:
1. The definition of long term empty is properties which have been empty for six months or longer.
2. Winchester City Council’s Empty Homes Strategy lapsed in 2008. For the reasons given by WCC (Steve Opacic in the Strategic Housing department) for not taking action on empty homes, see the letter of objection to Barton Farm by Keith Taylor, Green MEP, dated 10th June 2010 here.
3. If just half of the empty homes in the District – those currently known to the Council – were to be brought back into use, it would exceed the number of new affordable homes (approximately 100) currently being built, through Housing Associations, by the Council annually.
4. The Department for Communities announced the New Homes Bonus for local authorities on 17th February 2011. Commencing in April 2011, the New Homes Bonus will match fund the additional council tax raised for new homes and properties brought back into use, with an additional amount for affordable homes, for the following six years.
5. According to the Empty Homes Agency, the New Homes Bonus provides councils with the biggest financial incentive they have ever had for getting empty properties back into use. Read their briefing here.
6. The New Homes Bonus will not be ‘ringfenced’ so councils can spend it ‘according to local wishes’, for example, on improving play areas, transport improvements, town centre regeneration, Council Tax discounts etc.
7. An example of a long term empty home in the City is 27 Eastgate Street, a high quality townhouse in a central location, owned by Winchester City Council, which has been standing empty since March 2008 (see photo).
