Empty homes are on the increase. So why aren't they being used to fix the housing scarcity?

In 1980, when Corina Poore, 36 years old and pregnant, first unlocked to a run-down house in New Cross Gate, south-east London, the estate agent refused to step in with her.

Inside were dead cats, pet excrement and dirty mattresses. Pigeons flew in through holes in the roof and there was no indoor toilet. The extreme rotting smell was overwhelming.

Still, Corina chose this was her dream home. It was large, the ₤ 24,000 cost was economical and she made sure that whatever was fixable.

After getting a mortgage, she received a grant of ₤ 3,500 from Lewisham council, her regional authority, which spent for repairing the ceiling.

"At that point, ₤ 3,500 was rather a healthy amount, which I frantically needed," remembers Corina.

Some 45 years on, her Victorian four-storey house is worth approximately ₤ 1m - something Corina, a semi-retired movie and TV critic who contacted us through Your Voice, Your BBC News, might never ever have actually managed otherwise.

However, times have altered.

Lewisham Council has continued to use grants to the owners of empty homes for improvements - some for as much as ₤ 20,000 - however the uptake is low.

Just 22 grants were granted in the district in the last 5 years - regardless of it having 2,253 empty homes. A representative for Lewisham Council stated that, in addition to the grants, it is working "to make certain homes aren't enabled to remain empty or become derelict in our district".

At present, nevertheless, 775 have actually been empty for longer than 6 months. Meanwhile, there is a national housing lack, with rising homelessness and long social housing waiting lists.

As of October 2024, there were almost 720,000 empty homes in England, according to the federal government.

On the face of it, bringing these empty residential or commercial properties back into usage would comprise a substantial piece of the 1.5 m homes that the Labour government wishes to include to the country's housing stock by the end of its term.

But so far that isn't taking place enough. The concern is why, and provided it could, in theory, be a reasonable service to 2 growing problems, is this a case of a missed out on opportunity - or is the problem more complicated still?

empty homes

Not all empty homes are in the dire state of repair that Corina's as soon as was. But roughly 265,000 of them in England have actually been uninhabited for longer than six months and are categorized by the government as long-term empty (LTE). (Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have various housing policies, as housing is a devolved matter in the UK.)

Fixing these would also have a considerable result on the neighborhoods around them, as long-term empty residential or commercial properties can attract anti-social behaviour and in many cases reduce a location's worth.

Ann Devereaux, of St Werburgh's in Bristol, states that after the residential or commercial property beside her home fell uninhabited, it ended up being a "magnet" for crime.

"It makes me feel terrified when I leave my home or can be found in at night," she included.

The government has actually formerly actioned in. The 2010-15 Coalition made funding offered via two schemes: the Empty Homes Programme, which provided owners grants to fix their long-term empty homes