Agenda item

Councillor Whitehead, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Housing and Community Services introduced the report and made the following comments:

• Housing is the foundation for the council’s duties and services. The necessity of housing feeds into many community functions;
• Tackling empty properties is an important part of the strategy for providing housing to the local communities;
• Empty properties attract anti social behaviour and other criminal activities to an area, like squatting, graffiti, arson and fly tipping;
• The value of neighbouring properties is also negatively affected by creating an impression of neglect and decline of that area;
• Such resources are a waste in times of great housing demand;
• It is therefore against this background that the current work of the Empty Properties Team should be appreciated;
• There were a significant number of empty homes in Thanet. One hundred and fifty nine long term empty homes had been brought back into use through council intervention in the 2019/20 financial year;
• The draft Empty Homes Plan was intended to address the issue of long term empty homes and provide a strategy for bringing empty homes into use.

Members asked questions and made comments as follows:

• Why was Medway only included in one table (long term empty homes in Kent) and not in the other table on empty homes brought back into use?
• Was there a difference between empty properties brought back into use and empty properties?
• Wasn’t the demolition of the listed building a criminal offence?
• Did the TDC database include empty shops and empty flats that were located above shops? If they were not, could these be included in the database?
• Could brownfields sites in the three town centres be included? For example, in East Cliff Ward, there were five empty brownfields sites that have been in that state for the last 30 years or so;
• Had officers approached other councils to learn and adopt best practices of bringing empty homes/properties into use?
• Why was there a slow turn around in interest free loans and was the 5 year stay in the property being fulfilled?
• Could the council conduct a publicity drive to encourage residents to identify any empty properties in the area?
• Ramsgate Town Council has a community magazine that goes out monthly to about 18,000 residents. TDC could use that magazine to publish the activities of the Housing team regarding empty homes brought back into use and ask residents to report any empty properties in Ramsgate;
• Credit should be given to the Housing team for their work on the empty homes programme;
• Owner/Occupier loans – was there a waiting list for this?
• Were the targets in the Plan realistic? How did we arrive at such targets?
• A contrary view was that since the council would be charging 400% council tax for empty properties, would the council want to bring them into use or make more money from the tax instead?
• Currently there were only two officers. Could a case be made for an extra officer to be appointed to the team?
• Since EDMOs were very difficult to process successfully, could officers not spend their time on other more manageable targets?
• Enforced sale – Would TDC get its costs covered if the council got involved in enforced sale?

Cllr Whitehead and Richard Hopkins, Empty Homes Team Manager responded as follows:

• Information on the first table was publicly available on the Gov.UK website and the second table was prepared by KCC which collected data for all the councils that work with KCC on the “No Use Empty Campaign”. However Medway was a unitary authority, which did not necessarily work with KCC on these matters;
• The Housing team works largely with empty homes which they attempt to bring back into use. There were occasions when formerly commercial property which had become derelict would be targeted if it had the potential to be turned into residential accommodation;
• Unauthorised demolition of a listed building would be a criminal offence. Any demolition referred to in the report would require planning permission. There were times when an empty home would be a listed building. A listed buildings repair notice must be served as part of the process of applying for a certain type of compulsory purchase order;
• Most of the information in the database came from council tax data. Accommodation above shops is often included in the empty property database. Some empty shops that could be used for residential accommodation are included. However it should be noted that there were limited powers for the council as having an empty property was not unlawful in itself;
• Some brownfields sites in town centres were included in the database for monitoring, but these are challenging to deal with;
• Best practice: - TDC officers attended county wide meetings where experiences were shared regarding managing empty properties. The Kent wide empty properties officers network and the Kent Housing Technical Group met quarterly;
• KCC had a small team that was working with all Kent local authorities (minus Medway) to try and get all long term empty properties back into use;
• KCC’s No Use Empty interest free loans were intended for landlords and developers. This is a £5milion revolving fund, which had to be paid back to be lent out again.
• Owner occupier loans: the intention was for the council to come up with an additional facility (of about £20k per application) to the county wide scheme. The council was the only one in Kent to offer this additional loan scheme. As the funding pot is small, and the repayment period is ten years, it takes time to replenish the fund. Any non payment of the loan would always be pursued through the legal process available to the council;
• Council took part in an empty homes programme on BBC1 involving Matt Allwright. Officers also produced and published a video on the work of the team;
• Officers would explore the offer to advertise in the Ramsgate Town Council community magazine;
• A waiting list for owner occupier loans was held by the council.  This allowed potential applicants who intended to access the loan facility to be offered a loan when there was money available to lend out;
• In previous years, the council did not have a dedicated empty property officer. Currently the team has one, as well as a support officer to assist this officer. The targets proposed reflect the increasing experience of the empty property officer, and the fact that a new job share support officer joined the council this year. The team are keen to met the new proposed targets;
• Regarding the interplay between social gains and financial gains, there was a need to have functioning communities where housing plays an important part. There was need to increase housing in Thanet, hence to bring back into use empty homes;
• EDMOs were very difficult to secure and the law was changed and had made it even harder. Once you have secured the EDMO, the council would need to invest money into refurbishing the property. They are labour intensive and they represent a financial risk to the council. However, where an EDMO was not too much of a risk financially, the council could consider it. The terminology could be amended to reflect the fact that EDMOs would only be pursued in certain circumstances;
• Enforced sale – yes the council would recover their costs from the sale proceeds. Enforced sales receipts would need to be kept in perpetuity in case of a claim.

Members noted the report, subject to officers taking note of the Panel comments and points which they may include as they finalise the Empty Homes Plan for 2020-23.