Empty Homes "Rescue Package"

From the Mayor's Office, a press release:

"A £60million ‘rescue’ package to tackle the capital’s empty homes problem was announced today by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, to help deliver his manifesto commitment to reduce long-term empty homes to 1% of London’s total housing stock.

The funding will focus on bringing long term abandoned properties, derelict buildings and listed buildings at risk back into residential use to provide much-needed affordable homes. In doing so it will benefit neighbourhoods by tackling properties that have become an eyesore and a magnet for anti-social behaviour.

An audit of London’s dilapidated and abandoned buildings will also be commissioned to draw attention to the worst properties and encourage action to be taken against them."

What does this mean? I'm hoping the Empty Homes Agency will enlighten me later today.

Comments

[Labourboy]

Didn't Boris say, during his campaign, that there were 60,000 empty homes in London? And Livingstone pointed out this was a 20 year low?

If the 60k figure is right (and I could well be wrong), then is that £1million per home to bring it back into use??

Dave do you remember the figure quoted on the number of empty homes in London? I don't know why but 60k is stuck in my head...

[Dave Hill]

Labourboy: I'm asking myself exactly the same questions....

[Wireman]

By my calculations, that's £1,000 per empty home. Which doesn't seem an awful lot.

[Wireman]

In fact, according to this...

http://www.emptyhomes.com/documents/stats/lon07.pdf

...there were 83,576 empty homes in London last year. Which makes it £718 each.

[pastyface]

I hope this doesn't involve homes and votes...... where is Simon Milton by the way

[Labourboy]

Yeah of course, why did I think '60000' and '60 million' and then go to a million a home? Clearly 60 stuck in my head over the rest of it.

Hmm...ironically then, £1k a home would be very good value...

[OneHopeOneChoice]

Assuming that the £1000 per home is really enough to make the homes suitable to live in and to encourage people to buy/rent the property.

At least the fund is targeting those properties which need investment the most and will be targeted at the poorest in society (hopefully), in contrast to Bozzer's other housing policy which only helps those earning £60,000 p.a. or over.

[Wireman]

As details emerge, it looks more like this cash is being targeted at the owners of dilapidated listed buildings. Owners who are unable or unwilling to fund much-needed repairs themselves.

Whether it results in affordable homes or not, it begins to whiff slightly of corporate welfare and should be monitored closely.

[Labourboy]

Thing is it can be a nightmare to live in a listed building as if you ever need to do home improvements you need permission and it can be very very expensive (hundreds and hundreds of pounds to replace a door etc). Obviously a home is a home, but I don't know how affordable these homes will be.

Plus, £1k a home for listed buildings wouldn't cover more than a new door and a tub of paint.

That said, better to have the buildings active than not, so you've gotta give it tentative support...don't you?