Council unveils five-year plan to bring 1,000 empty homes back into use

An English council is focusing on empty homes as a key part of its strategy to reduce housing waiting lists.

Cumbrian local authority Westmorland and Furness, which is partly located in the Lake District National Park, currently has in excess of 3,500 empty properties, despite there being more than 8,000 people on the council’s housing waiting list.

Westmorland and Furness now plans to hire three dedicated staff to focus specifically on empty homes with the aim of bringing 1,000 of them back into use over the next five years.

Part of the new officers’ role will be working with homeowners who lack adequate funding to renovate their properties, either assisting them in applying for government grants or matching them with “other people who may have funding”.

Councillor Judith Derbyshire, who leads on housing at the council, told the BBC: “Quite often there are 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.”

Westmorland and Furness is also a popular holiday destination, with around 6,000 second homes also affecting the supply of available property.

Cllr Derbyshire added that the empty homes push would not solve the local housing crisis on its own. “We are still going to have to build on green fields,” she said, “but if you’ve got an existing house and [are] trying to get it back to being a home, I think it’s one of the win-wins for us.”

Meanwhile, north of the border, Glasgow City Council has written to the owners of more than 2,500 empty homes, asking if they will sell or rent their properties to help tackle the city’s housing crisis.

The local authority currently has around 7,000 homeless applications and more than 4,000 households living in temporary accommodation.

Councillor Ruairi Kelly, the city council’s convener for housing and development, said: “I’ve got an obligation, and a moral responsibility, to pursue any resource I can that might increase the supply of housing in the city. Addressing the thousands of vacant properties in Glasgow could be one of the quickest and most cost-effective ways of making a major impact.”