We are very pleased to announce that Don Foster MP has said that he would be "delighted" to accept our invitation to speak at The Empty Homes Conference 2013, to be held in Birmingham on 21st May.

Don is the government minister with immediate responsibiity for the government's empty homes programme, as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Communities and Local Government. We look forward to welcoming him and hearing what he has to say.

A news report on the Empty Homes website reveals that the popular Great British Property Scandal programmes presented by George Clarke and produced for Channel 4 television have been nominated for an Emmy award in the "digital programme non-fiction" category.

The news item goes on to report that the charity Empty Homes (previously the Empty Homes Agency) will

"shortly inherit the digital content for the series including the Report Empty Homes spotter and social media pages."

The "digital" aspect of the award can be assumed to refer to the on-line petition and the report-an-empty aspect of the programme.  We wish the programme makers every success.  International recognition will highlight the good work being done in Britain to tackle the issue of empty homes.

The announcement about all the nominees with further informatioon about the awards can be found here.

It will be interesting to see whether the mantle of Independent Empty Homes Advisor will also pass from George Clarke to David Ireland, the latter having built a strong reputation over a period of decades on the empty homes issue.

An Information Tribunal seems to have brought to a close the long-drawn out controversy around Freedom of Infomation requests for lists of empty homes.  The Tribunal's conclusion, in its re-hearing of the appeal of Voyjas against the original decision by the Information Commissioner that Camden Council was justified in withholding information about empty homes that were not owned by individuals, was emphatically in favour of the Information Commissioner. and the Council  The Tribunal concluded:

The relatively small weight that the public interest in disclosure bears does not, in our view, come close to equalling the public interest in preventing the categories of crime we have identified in this decision. Accordingly the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosure. The Council was therefore entitled to refuse to disclose the information requested by the Appellant.

You can download the full ruling from here.

FOI - the background

The Bexley FOI case long ago established the position that release by councils of lists of empties owned by private individuals would be a breach of Data Protection principles. However the decision in the Bexley case also stipulated that it would be appropriate to release the addresses of homes owned by non-individuals (companies, councils, housing associations etc), where data protection principles were not engaged. In that case the Information Tribunal decided that the public interest in disclosure outweighed what it considered to be the minimal impact of crime.

Subsequently both Tower Hamlets and Camden declined to release lists of such properties principally on the grounds that to do so would lead to increased crime associated with squatting and stripping of empty homes.  In both cases the Information Commissioner upheld the council decisions.  There was no appeal in the Tower Hamlets case but in the Camden case the Information Tribunal overturned the Information Commissioner decision, arguing that the public interest in disclosure continued to outweigh the concerns about crime.

Readers may recall that at this point Grant Shapps became involved with public comments criticising the Tribunal's decision.  The Council appealed to an Upper Tribunal which said that the lower Tribunal had erred by not taking into account various factors and remitted the case to a different lower Tribunal for a re-hearing of the appeal. 

Key points

As the extract quoted above demonstrates, the Information Tribunal's decision was in emphatic disagreement with that of the first Tribunal. Its reasons largely reflected those of the Upper Tribunal.  Regarding squatting, which it was generally acknowledged would be likely to involve some criminal damage, it was appropriate to take into account a whole series of impacts beyond the minor amount of criminal damage itself - for example costsof eviction, fear of crime amongst neighbours, costs of enhanced security measures that councils might have to undertake and so on.  

On the other side of the equation, it was identified that there were other sources of information about the council's management of its stock and it was held that Voyjas, the appellant, had not made any substantial case as to why a list of empty properties would be better than that information in holding the council to account for its handling of its voids.

It would seem unlikel that Voyjas could successfully appeal against this decision.  

Squatting itself not a factor

Although squatting of residential properties is now a crime in its own right, the appeal was heard on the basis of the law at the time the decision was made, when squatting was not a crime.  Thus the Appeal Tribunal did not treat squatting itself as a criminal activity though it did satisfy itself  that the release of lists of empty homes would tend to increase the amount of squatting  (Voyjas gave somewhat contradictory evidence on this score, the Tribunal concluded).

Given how strongly the Tribunal weighed the balance in favour of non-disclosure, it would seem very unlikely that any future Tribunal would take a different view now that squatting of dwellings has been criminalised, thereby adding yet more weight to the argument that releasing the information woiuld  prejudice the prevention of crime.

Practical implications

The practical implication would seem to be that councils should no longer release lists of empty homes.unless they are confident that there could be no increase in squatting or stripping of empty homes as a result.

On the other hand, it is important for empty homes practitoners to be aware that this does not prevent information being shared with partners - such as housing associations or community groups - involved in delivering empty homes strategies, providing the information is relased in a controlled way for specific purposes and kept secure from third parties. This would be no different from say Capita processing personal information collected by the Council as part of the out-sourcing of a housing benefits service.

Eric Pickles has finally announced the on-off-on relaxation of conversion of commercial to residential use.  The change is however restricted to changes from use class B1(a) (office use) to C3 - single household dwelling house. 

Theere will be a prior approval process that would allow authorities to challenge some proposed conversions. And there will be the opportunity for local authorities to submit proposals for exceptions in specfiied geographical areas (the City of London has apparently already been exempted from the scheme).

The announcement raises many questions, though most of these are not directly relevant to empty homes practitioners.  A useful source is a Planning magazine blog by Michael Donnelly.. He quotes Andy Black of consultancy PRP as follows:

1)     It is clear that no formal change has actually come into a force yet. It would appear that Local Planning Authorities will have the opportunity to apply for exemption from the changes (as has already happened with the City of London). The announcement today does not make it clear on the process or timescales for these exemptions to take place.

2)     It is unclear how will the provision of affordable housing be dealt with through the new PD rights? If no affordable housing is required as result of a change of use then this will have a dramatic effect on the economics of the land market and the supply of affordable housing in areas where it is most needed.

3)     The same point applies to other planning requirements renewable energy, planning obligations, CIL, parking levels, amenity space, secured by design, lifetime homes, and provision of wheelchair accommodation.  If these other rules are relaxed then this could lead to an increase in these proposals coming forward above more suitable and sustainable housing sites.

4)     In the London context it is unclear to what effect the new homes provided through office to residential conversions be expected to comply with guidance such as the Mayor’s Housing SPG? This specifies minimum space standards, levels of amenity space and advises against provision of elements such as single aspect, north facing units.

5)     We are unsure of the effect that this announcement will have on predicted levels of housing supply? If Council’s feel they can achieve housing numbers through office to residential conversion then there could be an increase in resistance and refusals for sustainable urban extensions and other windfall sites. How does this fit with the Government’s agenda for Garden Cities as advocated in the NPPF?

6)     In order to successfully convert a office building to residential it is almost inevitable changes to the external appearance would be beneficial. Such changes would still require submission of a planning application”.

Points 2 and 3 of the above list are those that caused the most adverse reaction at the time of the initial consultation in 2011 and we can surmise that they will cause the most difficulty again amongst those that have more holistic concerns.  Stimulating the economy and the provision of more housing are undoubtedly important in their own right.  Moreover these relaxations offer the opportunity for banks to recover some value from redundant offices that are currently sitting as potential time-bombs in their lending portfolios, so loan finance might be available where otherwise it might not.  But generating potentially hundreds of new homes in a limited built-up area without adequate planning controls is not nececssarily in the best long-term interests of local communities.  The need for such a measure implies that conversions will go ahead in circumstances where p;reviously planning permission would have been denied, so it fundamentally undermines localism and the spatial planning system.

For some further interesting discussion on the measure refer to the Planning Advisory Service forum here: