The Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, says there are “no excuses” not to build the 1.5 million new homes “people desperately need”. The target was announced by Labour in its election manifesto and the government says it will achieve its goal before the next general election.
In the meantime, the number of houses actually being completed has consistently fallen during the six months the party has been in the hot seat. Conservative Gillian Keegan said the highest number her party had managed to achieve in any one year was around 249,000 new homes.
The construction industry currently has a chronic shortage of skilled workers. This, together with escalating costs and a lack of availability of building materials, is adding to developers’ problems. It is doubtful that housebuilders would even want to deliver this number of new homes in any one year, given the tightened affordability factors and length of time necessary to complete on a house purchase.
A fully digitalised home buying and selling process is now being considered, which would provide key information to all parties prior to sale with the intention of speeding the process up.
However, there are still a massive number of properties already in existence that are not lived in for a range of reasons.
Government council tax data that has been analysed by campaign group, Action on Empty Homes, has shown that the number of empty and second homes that are declared not in use is just under one million, the equivalent of one for every 25 homes across the country. The number includes 265,000 homes officially classed as “long term empty”, meaning they have been unused and empty for at least six months.
Westmorland and Furness in Cumbria is the fifth worst area of England with empty houses. The area sits within the desirable Lake District National Park which has a council waiting list of over 8,000 people. It also has 3,500 empty properties. The local authority hopes to bring 1,000 of the properties back into use in the next five years.
The council’s housing lead, Judith Derbyshire, said: “Quite often there’s issues to do with rats, sometimes litter, sometimes damp going through into neighbours’ walls, and we’re wanting to get those properties back into use as fast as possible”.
The council hopes to work with homeowners who often don’t have the means to improve the properties, by helping them with access to government grants or introducing them to “other people who may have funding”.
Almost 6,000 properties in the Westmorland and Furness area are holiday lets or second homes.
A “tax disincentive” is applied to properties in the form of a 100% council tax premium on homes that have been empty for between one and five years, 200% up to ten years and 300% for longer. The council may also apply an Empty Dwelling Management Order on homes that are left empty, which they could then make habitable to provide a home for a tenant. Under the process, any income raised above the cost of putting the home back into action is paid to the owner of the property.