In over a third of English local authorities, the number of homes that have been empty for more than six months are on the rise, despite an overall decrease nationwide, according to new figures from the Empty Homes Agency.
National campaigning charity, the Empty Homes Agency found that there are rising numbers of these long-term empty homes in 116 local authority areas and have warned that the successes of recent efforts to tackle the waste of empty homes could be threatened by this.
The figures show that local authorities in northern areas and the midlands continue to dominate the top 20 list of those with the highest proportion of homes standing empty for more than six months. In the south, Kensington and Chelsea stood out with over 2% of homes in the borough being recorded as long-term empty.
Camden (1.47%) and Westminster (1.43%) were two of the other London boroughs that had a higher proportion of homes lying empty for six or more months than the national average (1.02% of homes).
Commenting on the findings, Helen Williams, chief executive of the charity said:
Some of the areas where the numbers are on the rise, such as parts of central London, have buoyant housing markets and speculative buying-to-leave may-well be a factor requiring some more imaginative responses.
Despite these rises in certain local authorities, overall there was a reduction of 27,242 in the number of long-term empty homes across England with the vast majority of areas seeing a decrease.
Number of empty homes increases in 116 local authority areas
Those 116 local authorities that saw an increase make up 36% of the 326 local authority areas in England.
The London borough of Camden saw the biggest rise in the number of homes classed as long-term empty with an additional 518 taking its total to 1,482.
The largest proportional increase was in Hounslow, where there were just 17 empty homes in 2012 but 427 in 2013 - a 2,411% rise.
The median number of additional long-term empty dwellings across those 116 local authorities was 54.
Manchester has biggest reduction in empty homes
Manchester managed a reduction of 6,327 long-term empty homes between October 2012 and 2013. This 69.2% drop means that it had the largest reduction of anywhere in the country, which was a big contribution to the net fall in long-term empty homes.
Despite the sharp increases across some of the London boroughs mentioned above, overall there were 116 fewer long-term empty homes across the capital as a whole.
How was the data compiled?
- The data was sourced from the latest council tax data that the government collects from all English local authorities and the full dataset of empty homes statistics is available on the Empty Homes Agency website. Empty homes are determined from the data as properties exempt from council tax, charged discounted council tax, or charged a higher (premium) level of council tax because they are empty
- An empty home is classified as a dwelling that is vacant because it is either between occupants or empty undergoing modernization or in disrepair or awaiting demolition
- A property is classified as a long-term empty home if it has been vacant for more than six months
How did the figures change in your area?
We have put some key data in the table below, which breaks down the figures for every local authority.
It shows the number of long-term empty homes in 2013, the change since 2012 and the proportion of homes in the local authority that are empty.
Sort by each columns or search for a particular area using the box on the right of the table.