{"id":7461,"date":"2014-04-12T17:17:02","date_gmt":"2014-04-12T16:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ihbconline.co.uk\/newsachive\/?p=7461"},"modified":"2014-04-12T17:17:02","modified_gmt":"2014-04-12T16:17:02","slug":"englands-empty-homes-at-10-year-low","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=7461","title":{"rendered":"England\u2019s \u2018Empty Homes\u2019 at 10 year low"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Government reports this week have highlighted that the number of empty dwellings in England is at a ten year low<\/span><b>.<\/b><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) writes:<br \/>\n<\/span>The numbers of empty properties in England have fallen to a 10-year low, new figures show. Communities Secretary Eric Pickles welcomed the news as \u2018a significant achievement\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>The latest data shows that as of October 2013, there were 635,127 empty homes across the country, down by around a fifth since 2009 and their lowest level since 2004.<\/p>\n<p>But Mr Pickles especially welcomed the dramatic drop in the numbers of long-term vacant properties, which fell by around a third over the past 4 years, from 316,251 in 2009 to 216,050 in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Delivering more homes is a key part of the government\u2019s long-term economic plan and with this in mind ministers have introduced a wide range of measures to bring back into use homes that have stood empty and unused for years.<\/p>\n<p>This includes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a \u00a3235 million empty homes funding programme, which will deliver 12,000 homes from empty properties by March 2015 \u2013 with apprenticeships on offer to make this happen<\/li>\n<li>rewarding councils for bringing empty homes back into use through the New Homes Bonus \u2013 since April 2011, councils have been allocated over \u00a32.2 billion for delivering new homes, including bringing over 93,000 empty homes back into use, which they can then use to benefit the wider community<\/li>\n<li>giving councils new powers to remove Council Tax subsidies to empty homes, and use the funds to keep the overall rate of Council Tax down<\/li>\n<li>cancelling the Pathfinder programme which sought to demolish homes, instead focusing on refurbishment and getting empty homes into use<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said:\u2018Empty properties can blight entire neighbourhoods, becoming a magnet for antisocial behaviour when they should be family homes.\u00a0 So I\u2019m pleased to see that the efforts we\u2019ve made to bring these homes back into use have helped bring the numbers down to a 10-year low, with the number of long-term empty homes down by around a third since 2009.\u00a0 This is on top of the wider efforts we\u2019re making to get the country building, with 420,000 new homes delivered since 2010 \u2013 including 170,000 affordable homes\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Communities Minister Stephen Williams said \u2018I\u2019m delighted to see the numbers of empty homes in this country at their lowest for a decade.\u00a0 This is a significant achievement, which is not only delivering more homes but also creating more jobs and apprenticeships, leading to both a stronger economy and a fairer society as these properties are renovated.<\/p>\n<p>I look forward to seeing how councils and communities build on this success in the coming year.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Statistics on English housing:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/statistical-data-sets\/live-tables-on-dwelling-stock-including-vacants\" target=\"_blank\">UK Gov Stats<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/news\/empty-homes-reach-10-year-low\" target=\"_blank\">UK Gov News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Government reports this week have highlighted that the number of empty dwellings in England is at a ten year low.\u00a0 The Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) writes: The numbers of empty properties in England have fallen to a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=7461\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7462,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7461\/revisions\/7462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}