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A letter has gone out to Chief Executives and Leaders of local authorities from Helen Williams of the charity Empty Home, announcing Empty Homes Week 2017. We're sure our members will be pulling out the stops to make the week a successful one.
The full text of the letter is reproduced below:
Dear Colleague,
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I have just posted a discussion draft of a document that may be submitted to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry and that explores the relevance - or potential relevance - of empty homes for the disaster.
Given media reports of Grenfell survivors continuing to live in hotels, the frequent references to empty homes in Kensington and Chelsea, and the headlines when senior Labour politicians proposed requisitioning empty homes to meet the survivors' immediate housing needs, some kind of formal input from the Network seems essential.
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Sadiq Khan, the London Mayor, has written to the government requesting powers to levy higher council tax on empty high-value homes. The press release does not state what level of tax should be charged but says it should be set
'at a meaningful rate that would incentivise occupation, or at the very least generate a more substantial receipt that could support investment in new affordable homes and other measures to tackle the housing crisis.'
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A new edition of the Empty Homes Agency analysis of empty homes figures has been published, reporting figures mainly derived from the 2016 CTB returns.
The report shows the headline figures for long-term vacants based on those returns to be more or less stable around the 200,000 mark.
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This was a new category in our Empty Homes Awards and it produced more entries than we have ever had, in any category.
We also had a new sponsor, in the shape of London social housing provider Cromwood Social thanks in part to the advocacy of Abdus Saleh, their Head of Investment and Development, who has had a long-time involvement with empty homes issues as an enabler.
Contributing to the Conference Brochure, the organisation wrote:
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The Irish media are reporting the announcement by Eoghan Murphy, Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Goverment, of the measures that are being taken to tackle some of the Republic's 180,000 empty homes.
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Empty homes in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea are back in the headlines after RKBC released a list of all the owners. According to the Guardian newspaper,the list was emailed 'by mistake' and includes the names of all the owners.
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The Innovation Award is the brainchild of Carson Millican (pictured right), trading as Empty Property Solutions Ltd. Now based in Northern Ireland, Carson gained many years’ experience of empty homes work at different London Boroughs and with the East London Regeneration Partnership and has been a stalwart member of the Empty Homes Network for many years, serving on its Executive.
In sponsoring the award, Carson explained as follows:
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A number of news reports have been citing research by estate agents James Pendleton Ltd. which shows how little use is being made of Empty Dwelling Management Orders around the country, and in London in particular.
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About the Award
The Award submissions
The winning Award submission
Destin’s offer
This was a new award category for 2017, sponsored by Destin Solutions Ltd.
The call for submissions stated:
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The fire at Grenfell House in Kensington and Chelsea has brought empty homes into the headlines, following Jeremy Corbyn’s call for unoccupied luxury flats in the borough to be requisitioned to ensure that survivors of the disaster can be housed locally.
When launching his proposal on 15th June, Corbyn explicitly situated it in the context of the supposed buy-to-leave phenomenon (which Corbyn inaccurately referred to as ‘land-banking’). He was reported to have said:
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Alok Sharma, MP for Reading West, has been appointed Minister of State for Housing and Planning at the Department of Communities and Local Government.
His predecessor, Gavin Barwell, lost his seat in the June 2017 General Election. Sharma's own majority was reduced from over 6,000 to 2,876.
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This is our longest-running awards category and it always attracts high quality submissions, making the choice of winners difficult.
This year, the award was sponsored and judged by Kent’s No Use Empty team, who certainly are well-equipped with all the necessary experience needed to evaluate the entries.
In the event, they selected one outright winner, and also gave a ‘highly commended’ award. The awards were presented at the Empty Homes Conference in Bimringham by Steve Grimshaw, Programme Manager, Kent County Council.
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With the election only a few days away and all the manifestos now published, this is a good time for a brief look at policy proposals connected to bringing empty property back into use for housing.
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Delegates to the 2017 Empty Homes Conference, held in Birmingham last week, gave it an average rating of 4.73 out of 5, making it the highest-scoring such event held to date.
A strong line-up of speakers was undoubtedly a big factor. Among the most popular sessions was that presented by Kerry Morgan-Gould (pictured right) and Vicki Green, of Ashfords Solicitors, about dealing with dificult Probate cases. But that was just one example from among many.
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A very successful and well-attended Empty Homes Conference on Wednesday in Birmingham contained one poignant moment, when the delegates showed their appreciation for Chris Skinner, who sadly died in February, by offering a collective salute.
Chris was well-known for his work as a solicitor supporting Empty Homes practitioners up and down the country over many years, particularly in the area of Compulsory Purchase. He had also spoken at two previous conferences.
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Destin Solutions Ltd. is seeking to help local authorities maximise NHB by partnering with a local authority empty homes team or practitioner to pilot new approaches to data cleansing of the 2017 CTB return.
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Cromwood Social has stepped in to sponsor the Empty Homes Award for Best Before-and-After Photo, which is a new award category this year. Details of the Award Category can be found in our news story here.
We were contacted yesterday by Cromwood's Abdus Saleh with the offer of sponsorship, which we were happy to accept. Cromwood Social is also going to provide Silver Supporter sponsorship.
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Shelter Scotland has issued a Local Government Manifesto for Homes - part of their 'Homelessness - Far from Fixed' campaign - which calls for every local authority to employ a dedicated Empty Homes Officer.
The manifesto is aimed at the local government elections and is part of a campaign to get candidates to sign up to four commitments.
Commitment 1, 'Deliver a home for everyone in Scotland', includes 3 action points:
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We are looking for submissions for two more categories in the Empty Homes Awards 2017. These are new categories which are being sponsored by the Empty Homes Network itself this year.
This Award is now being sponsored by Cromwood Social which is a part of the Cromwood Group.