On 1st February, Hyndburn MP Graham Jones tabled a number of amendments designed to reshape the proposed Empty Homes Premium into something more coherent and workable than what is to be found in the current Local Government Finance Bill going before Parliament.

In a series of well-argued proposals that parallel many of the comments made in the Empty HOmes Ntetwork consultation response, MP Jones suggested that Read more »

This story about the problems experienced with an empty home in Bradford really says it all about the misery a nuisance empty can bring to neighbours.

The Bradford Telegraph and Argus story  cites fly-tipping, anti-social behaviour, identify-theft, damp penetration to the neightbouring property as some of the more compelling reasons why the home needs to be brought back into use.

The HCA has revealed that £30million has been set aside for the Empty Homes Community Grants Fund, leaving no more thatn £70million for bids to the HCA's Empty Homes pot which are currently being assessed.   (£2million has already been allocated during 2011-12, so the amount may be less than £70million).

The HCA Newsletter for the 1st February noted "We are currently assessing an encouraging bidding response to the remaining £70m of funding." Read more »

Tribal Group has now activated the page where community groups can apply to the Empty Homes Community Grant Fund.  You can link to the web-page from here. 

Downloadable documents include a rather terse set of FAQs that will doubtless be added to and the application form and notes. . The application form has obviously received a lot of careful attention (it's version 6.2) and already answers some of the queries in our initial news story last week. Read more »

For a long time, we've been promising improvements to our email notifications system.  The promised improvements have finally arrived.

We had a problem initially with the number of meails being sent out - the frequency control wasn't working.  Sorry about that.  The issue has been fixed now . Read more »

The Empty Homes Community Grants Fund was officially launched by Andrew Stunell on 24th January.  The consultancy Tribal has been selected as the third party organisation to manage the programme day-to-day.  They will be processing the grant applications. Applications are to be received by Tribal by 17th April 2012 (no time of day is stated). Read more »

South Oxfordshire, the first authority in England to have an Interim EDMO approved, has reportedly turned its back on the measure because of the costs involved.  According to a BBC story local parish councillor Chrissie Phillips-Tilbury urged the Council to bring more empty homes back into use.  But the Council's website states "the council does not have sufficient resource and cannot justify the financial cost of trying to enact EDMOs". Read more »

The Empty Homes Network is pleased to have been asked to help organise the next London Empty Property Officer Forum, following the highly successful event put on by LEPOF last March.

The LEPOF meeting will be hosted by LB Hounslow on 23rd of February.  There'll be two free places for each London authority.  Places will also be available for authorities from outside London, for which a charge will be made. 

The Empty Homes Network is handling the main admin for the event, fulfilling our commitment to support regional empty homes forums.   Read more »

The Red Tape Challenge is currently focusing on Housing and Construction.  The Challenge shifts its spotlight periodically, though more than one area is looked at concurrently. 

The Housing and Construction Challenge says it will last five weeks, although there is the minor technicality that it doesn't tell you when the five weeks started (doh!).  However that information  can be found on the "All themes" page: the Challenge started on the 12th January and ends on the 16th February.  Read more »