March

2006
THE EMPTY HOMES AGENCY
Monthly News Bulletin

Table of Contents

1 A Word…
2 Opening Doors in Amber Valley
3 Access Denied
4 Low Demand Event

Empty Homes Agency, 195 – 197 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 5NE
Tel: 020 7828 6288 Email: helen.ashby@emptyhomes.com
Statements in this newsletter are for guidance only and the Empty Homes Agency will not accept liability for
losses resulting from reliance on them. Professional advice should always be obtained.
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1
A Word…

Jonathan Ellis, Chief Executive

Dear All,

I am writing this piece on the day that the regulations for Empty Dwelling
Management Orders are laid before Parliament. As you know, we have
been waiting quite a substantial period of time for these regulations to be
laid, but they’re now out in the public domain!

This publication marks the next step of a long-running campaign by the

Empty Homes Agency to see new powers introduced for local
authorities on tackling long-term private empty properties. You may
recall our initial idea was around a power of compulsory leasing, and
became Empty Dwelling Management Orders in Part 4 of the Housing
Act 2004.

These regulations now have two weeks during which time

Parliamentarians will have the opportunity to pray against (or object) to
the regulations, and we’ll have to see how these regulations are
regarded by Parliament. We have had very positive meetings with
Liberal Democrat and Conservative MPs and it is good to know that the
opposition parties remain in support of this important new measure for
local authorities.

If everything goes according to plan we very much hope that these new
powers will be operational from the April of this year, although we
understand that there will be a delay clause of some six months before
local authorities will finally be able to use them. You’ll be hearing much
more from us over the next few months on these new powers, and how

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they will be able to be used to unlock the potential of England’s empty

homes.

It is great to see this campaign nearing a successful conclusion. It was

also a very good experience of the Empty Homes Agency as an
independent body working very closely alongside local authority
practitioners on empty homes. This campaign was substantially
influenced by key people working on the ground to bring empty homes
back into use, which was undoubtedly one of the key parts of its
success. This campaign has given us a great model of how the Agency
can work together with key people in ensuring that there is positive
change on empty homes.

The other issue that I wanted to report on this month was a recent visit
that I made to East Hampshire District Council. I was invited down last
month to speak to a collection of District and Town Councillors about
the issue of empty property. Empty property is not a grave issue in this
district, but where there is empty property it is causing increasing
community concern. It was excellent to have the opportunity to go to
Alton and to present what is happening across the country to tackle
empty property and offer a series of good practice solutions to the
Council.

What was immensely encouraging was the positive response that we

received from councillors in East Hampshire. And it will be very
interesting to note how this initiative is driven forward, but there does
seem to be substantial political support behind it.

And what is also interesting in this line of work is that one action can
very often lead to another action as a ripple effect occurs… And several
days after giving this presentation, we were contacted by the Local
Government Association in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight inviting us
to address a meeting of council leaders in this sub-region. This was an
excellent opportunity for us to get our message to the key political
decision makers in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight on the huge
potential of empty property.

I thought I should share this example with you as just one example of
how the Agency working in partnership with local authorities can help
move the issue up the political agenda.

Whilst there is much happening at the moment on empty homes, there

is still so much more to be done, and the Empty Homes Agency is very
keen to play our role in helping bring more empty homes back into use.

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We hope that you enjoy this edition of the bulletin, and as ever, if you
have any comments or ideas for future items please don’t hesitate to get
in touch with us, it would be great to hear from you.

With all best wishes,

Jonathan Ellis
Chief Executive

Jonathan Ellis
Chief Executive

Jonathan Ellis
Chief Executive
Empty Homes Agency
Tel: 020 7963 6883
Email: jonathan.ellis@emptyhomes.com

Opening Doors in Amber Valley –

Prioritising Empty Properties

Amber Valley Borough Council is based in the heart of Derbyshire with

a high demand for housing and a wide variety of property types. Our
empties range from Victorian terraces, modern detached, flats over
shops, listed cottages, mobile homes, country residences with land and
everything in between.

The Council has only had an Empty Property Officer since August 2005
but I have been amazed by the priority given to the issue, in anticipation

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of my appointment. Using the model of Local Area Agreements,

although not contained within them, reducing the number of empty
properties is a theme within our Corporate Performance Plan with
targets being well publicised by the Council. It’s refreshing to see my
work as more than a BVPI and rewarding that the benefits of tackling
empty properties is recognised at a corporate level. Furthermore, the
profile of empty properties is being raised within the community we
serve by its significance in the Corporate Performance Plan.

Such acknowledgement by the Council of the importance of dealing with

empty homes has meant that our major partnerships have also taken up
the issue. The Amber Valley Partnership, responsible for the
Community Plan is currently incorporating the Empty Property Strategy
within the wider Housing Theme. Reducing the number of vacant
houses and businesses also features within the me&u regeneration
project in Heanor and District, which is taking a holistic approach that
targets a specific area of the borough. Our pilot empty property road-
show is to be held in this regeneration area because we have been able
to make links thorough our strategic and joined-up approach. Corporate
recognition of the fact that tackling empty homes is more far-reaching
than just increasing the supply of housing can easily feed into
regeneration strategies.

In terms of internal functioning within the Council the Empty Property

Strategy Group is comprised of representatives involved in housing,
environmental health, council tax, strategic planning, planning
enforcement, regeneration and partner organisations. Cross-
departmental input has been encouraged and facilitated by the contents
of the Corporate Performance Plan, effectively extinguishing the battles
Empty Property Officers may face in engaging other officers who may
not immediately see how this is relevant to their field of work, nor how
they directly contribute to the positive effects of bringing redundant
properties into use. It does not necessarily follow that all owners now
want to do something about homes they have left empty, indeed some
wish to continue to do so purely to take advantage of what they see as
the inherent investment value of a property, but committed
organisational support certainly encourages Empty Property Officers to
take on the difficult cases.

The more I work within this area the more I appreciate just how much
reducing the number of empty properties contributes towards creating
vibrant, safe and sustainable communities and environments and
welcome all efforts to promote it within a local, regional and national
framework.

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3
Sue Gardiner
Amber Valley Council

Access Denied
The Empty Homes Agency has had lots of feedback from people
who have made requests to local authorities for a list of empty
properties. Very few have had any success. Whilst there are some
honourable exceptions most local authorities it appears generally
refuse all requests. Here is a selection of some of the reasons given
for refusal.

• The information is exempt because disclosing it may prejudice

the commercial interests of owners of empty properties.

• The information is exempt because disclosing it may encourage

people to enter empty properties. Some of them are derelict
buildings which may be in a state of disrepair endangering the
physical or mental health of the individuals concerned.

• The local authority declines to release the information because to

do so would prejudice the local authorities commercial interests
in managing its interests in public housing.

• The information is exempt because it is personal data and

releasing it would be in breach of the Data Protection Act 1998.

• We cannot release the information because the local authority

does not have sufficient resources to process the request.

• The information is exempt because the information is already

reasonably accessible by other means. For example information
on council voids has been reported in the local newspaper.

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• The Council does not have a complete list of empty properties as

requested and the only appropriate source within the Council
where such information could be collated is the council tax
database. This is often seen as a good source of acquiring
information to fulfil other functions, but the consensus of legal
opinion is that the Local Government Finance Act 1992 prohibits
the use of council tax data for secondary purposes.

• We can not provide the addresses of these properties as it is

exempt as we are protecting our commercial interests by not
disclosing and listing these addresses for the public to know as it
would leave the Council's properties vulnerable to squatters.

• The information is exempt because releasing it would prejudice

the prevention or detection of crime. Namely that releasing
information about empty properties into the public domain would
increase the risk of vandalism, burglary and arson.

• The local authority refuses your request because disclosing the

information would prejudice the prevention or detection of crime
by increasing the risk of properties being illegally squatted.

• The request is refused because interrogation of computer

records would further process the original data.

• The council cannot release the information because they do not

have records of empty properties.

• The request is refused because it is exempt under the Freedom

of Information Act.

• The Council takes the view, having regard to the circumstances

of this case, the public interest in maintaining the exemption
outweighs any interest in disclosing the information to you.

These extracts have been sent to us by recipients of the refusal

letters. In some cases the text has been edited and some are a
summary of two or more similar extracts. My personal favourite is
the one about finding the information in the local paper. If you have
any others please let me know on david.Ireland@emptyhomes.com

David Ireland

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4
February 2006

Tackling Low Demand – Sharing

Solutions for Success
The Empty Homes Agency, in conjunction with Capita conferences is
hosting a major conference looking at tackling the problems associated
with areas with low demand for housing, currently affecting around one
million homes.

Wednesday 22nd March 2006 - Wakefield, West Yorkshire.

For more information see the attached PDF

Capita2.pdf