February

2006
THE EMPTY HOMES AGENCY
Monthly News Bulletin

Table of Contents

1 A Word…
2 Empty Property and the Environment
3 All an Artist needs is Empty Space
4 New Year Message
5 2005 Regional table of HIP data

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.
E M P T Y H O M E S A G E N C Y

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A Word…

Jonathan Ellis, Chief Executive

Dear All,

Firstly we’d like to wish a very happy New Year to all our Empty Homes
bulletin readers from all of us at the Empty Homes Agency. We are
hoping for another successful year in our campaign to bring more empty
homes back into use to meet housing need.

With the arrival of this bulletin, you will see that the new HIP figures are
available on empty homes – a full breakdown is available on our
website www.emptyhomes.com under resources. Why don’t you check
out what it happening in your area?

Always being keen to find out what is happening all around the country
on empty homes, I paid a visit to Oldham recently. I was keen to see
how they were using the potential of empty homes, especially as
Oldham is part of the one of the nine housing market renewal
pathfinders.

Credit must go to the Council officers in Oldham. It was clear to me that

empty homes, especially in the private sector, had not always had the
highest priority, but I was pleased to see the increasing focus that empty
homes was taking in the council’s strategic approach to housing.

I was particularly interested in the inclusion of empty homes stretch

targets in the Local Area Agreements (LAA). This seemed an excellent
idea of incorporating empty homes work into the corporate work of the
local authority. We’d be really interested to know if more local

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authorities are using the LAA framework to tackle empty homes. One
key concern for us is that empty homes work is not seen as a peripheral
concern – including empty homes in LAA’s is a powerful way to bring
empty homes work into the mainstream.

I was also interested to learn of the success in the priority areas of

voluntary purchase of empty homes. The Council had been approaching
absentee empty property owners and offering to buy their homes off
them. It was revealing to see how successful this voluntary approach
was proving, and it was quite amazing to see the quality of some of the
property. It just goes to show that there is no one answer to tackling
empty homes.

And a final word about our new campaign on publicly funded empty
homes. Most of our work over the past four years has been on gaining
action on the 85% of empty homes, which are in the private sector. This
year we want to turn the spotlight on empty homes run by publicly
funded organisations. Our call is for all such organisations to report
annually on their empty homes.

At a time of housing crisis in this country, we must ensure that public

money is being used in the best possible way and that these assets are
used to the full. We are regularly assured that there is no problem in this
area, but we would like to see clear proof that there is no problem. If you
would like more information about this campaign please do get in touch!

With all best wishes

Yours sincerely,

Jonathan Ellis
Chief Executive

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

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Empty Property and the Environment

Who says environmental issues aren’t
serious – are you keeping up to date?

The Sustainable and Secure Building Act 2004 amends the Building Act
1984 to enable building regulations to address environmental
sustainability issues for the first time, by requiring the use of
construction materials that have a minimal impact on the environment.

The 2004 Act reflects recognition by UK government that addressing the

environmental impact of all buildings is a crucial component of achieving
sustainable development and carbon emission targets. The Act and the
environmental improvement of the UK’s existing housing stock
(representing 99% of the building stock at any one time) is a function of
government policy on climate change and sustainability agenda.

Previously Building Act powers, under which Building Regulations are

made, did not address sustainability and consequently England and
Wales lag way behind the rest of Western Europe in terms of
addressing the environmental impact of buildings. The majority of new
and existing buildings in the UK continue to have very considerable
environmental impacts - it is estimated that all UK buildings are
responsible for 54% of national carbon dioxide emissions, half of that
being produced by residential property alone. Moreover, UK buildings
account for 40-50% of the energy, water and resources consumed and
for a similar amount of the pollution created. About 17% of waste going
to landfill sites is construction waste. (Source: DEFRA,
www.defra.gov.uk)

Added to this looked at as habitats for humans many of our homes and
work places are actually dangerous; the majority of construction
materials being chemical-based synthetic toxic compounds. Since we
now spend an increasingly large portion of our time indoors exposed to
these synthetic materials our own health is being affected detrimentally.
While there is no common definition of what is a sustainable building it
clearly extends beyond a building’s physical effect on the environment;

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it is also about providing occupants with increased safety and security.

The new 2004 Act will also allow crime resistance measures to be built
into buildings as a matter of course just as fire resistance is already.

Residential buildings have begun to be used in other unsustainable

ways too. They have become commodities more valuable as an
investment than a home. The very fact of building built a sense of
community in the past, now the opposite is often true. It is now accepted
that the Earth acts as a living system, continuously adjusting to changes
in solar energy levels to maintain the conditions for life. Its health and
our own well-being are dependent on each other. What is healthy for us
is to live and work in buildings and urban centres that allow the natural
environment influence us, what is healthy for the planet is to have these
buildings (including the occupation and activities within them) operate
as an extension of its own natural processes.

The scale of the challenges presented by the new Act is considerable.

While more energy efficient buildings would certainly equal lower fuel
bills as well as a potentially massive reduction in carbon dioxide
emissions, existing housing stock has been identified as a difficult
sector to reach for various reasons. The Act creates new powers to
make Building Regulations on the topics discussed above, and also
requires the Government to report to Parliament every two years on
what it has done in terms of devising Building Regulations on these
issues. The initial task will be to ensure necessary regulations come
forward quickly, and that the first report to Parliament demonstrates
tangible progress being made. Over the past year development of the
Act and attaining the sustainability of existing buildings has been the
focus of work by the UK National Sustainable Development
Commission. The final report of this work is currently with the ODPM
and is expected to be made public in the near future. An interim report
(July 2005) of this work is available here:
http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/news/resource_download.php?
attach_id=028YWFT-8251JCW-YIX8C0Q-LWK3K6L (copy the whole link into the web
browser).

The overall implications of the new Act clearly impact on empty property
work and the manner in which renovation and refurbishment and
conversion of a non-sustainable property into a sustainable one is
carried out. The anticipated changes to building regulations will affect
the choice of materials used during construction work, the equipment
and types of technologies employed. There is a big role for national
policy to play in terms of implementing new measures – the supply of
grants and advice programmes for energy and resource efficiency, the
usage of sustainable materials and technologies and setting minimum

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standards which would see standards for works on existing buildings on

a par with new building work.

While there are several UK organisations promoting sustainable

construction issues as a whole amongst planners and developers there
are none to date specifically looking at existing properties, and in
particular addressing individual owners. The Empty Homes Agency’s
own London project includes the London Empty Property Hotline, which
gives general advice to landlords about empty property issues and
matches owners with suitable schemes and services. The project which
has been part funded by the Greater London Authority (GLA) since
2002 has recently received further start up funding from the GLA to
extend services provided to landlords and residents to include advice
and resources relating the environmentally sustainable return to use of
empty property.

Plans are now underway to create an information bank and network of

sustainable construction practitioners, acting as a sign-post, designed to
build and strengthen London’s capacity for the environmentally
sustainable renovation and refit of properties in disrepair. There are
many tangible environmental benefits and cost savings over time if the
renovation and refurbishment of existing buildings is carried out
according to sustainable development principles. The National
Sustainable Development Commission has identified the main barrier to
improving use of materials as the lack of available information on
materials sustainability (at point of sale). Existing materials labelling
schemes are insufficient to support consumer choice. Our project seeks
to overcome those barriers, and, with on average 5 owners of properties
in disrepair contacting us daily, we fee the project has the potential to
make a real contribution towards achieving London’s sustainability
agenda.

The government is also currently consulting on a new Code for

Sustainable Homes which is addressing new housing schemes as
opposed to existing properties. To download the consultation paper for
the Code for Sustainable Homes and a questionnaire about it, visit:

http://www.odpm.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1162094

Desmond Kilroy
January 2006

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3
‘All an Artist needs is Empty Space’
Space is a huge commodity in London, which even if you’re lucky
enough to have a studio I’m sure its more expensive than spacious.
This ridiculous ratio of space to money is causing a huge loss of talent
and potential amongst artists who simply cannot afford to have a studio
to work from.
At the same time there are all these empty buildings all over London ,
so as a group of frustrated artists, we took the initiative to start
reclaiming wasted space in the name of ‘REGENERATION THROUGH
ART’. Over the years our organisation has now snowballed into a large
network of artists and people who need space and are prepared to work
for it.

I am one of the organisers of this community arts project that has, for
the past 3years, been utilising five neighbouring buildings on Lea Bridge
rd in Hackney, while they are awaiting redevelopment. As an
organisation: We regenerate disused, derelict properties into
functioning cultural centres that can act as a platform for local
artists, musicians and community projects to develop
themselves.www.project142.org
Four organisers of ‘Project142’ completed a 'Social Enterprise' course
at 'Bootstrap Ltd' in Hackney last year, which has given us the
operational skills needed to run our not for profit organisation.

The site that we are currently operating from is now due to be

redeveloped towards the end of March 2006, so we are scouting for
new empty properties that could benefit from our regeneration
experience, workshops for the community and artist studio space. We
also promote recycling and enhance the quality of the local environment
& buildings, leading to an increase of the property value, community
involvement & cultural diversity of the area we are in.

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4
Our proposal is concerned with arranging a legal agreement for utilising
empty properties for a specified time period, allowing the proprietor to
gain free maintenance and security as well as benefiting from the
regeneration of the property.
There are a huge amount of derelict, disused buildings in and around
London that could be used for creative, educational or even residential
purposes, instead of being left to rot and becoming a hive for drugs and
crime. We should all take action to help regenerate wasted space for
the future of arts, culture and community.

If you have, or know of an empty property that could benefit from

our regeneration experience then please contact us so we can take
action to utilise the space.

www.project142.org (check the site for more info)

142 Lea Bridge rd
Clapton, Hackney
London, E5 9RB
project142@tiscali.co.uk
tel:02089865773, mob:07950500979

The Empty Homes Agency New

Year Message 2006
Where next on empty homes?

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Over eighteen months ago the BBC contacted us with an enquiry on

empty homes. As a campaigning charity on empty homes, we often
attract enquiries from the media. What made this enquiry different was
that this wasn’t a one-off enquiry, but the BBC was interested in running
a series of programmes on empty homes and how individuals are
affected by empty homes.

We were excited by this approach, and over the next twelve months,
through a series of different production teams, we had increasingly
detailed conversations and discussions with the BBC. The prize for us,
without a shadow of doubt, was raising what had historically been a
somewhat niche issue within the housing sector to a much wider public
audience.

And I guess there was a realisation by the Empty Homes Agency that
public sector solutions to the problem of private empty property were
only ever going to be part of the solution. We also needed to lever in
additional individual developer interest in this issue to really see if we
could get the maximum returns in bringing empty property back into
use.

In addition we were having discussions with David Ireland, who shortly

joined us as our Local Government Advisor, on a brand new book on
empty homes. In the past the Agency had published many publications
on empty property, but in the main part they were aimed at a local
authority or RSL audience. The difference with this proposal was that
the book and its working title, ‘How to Recycle a House’, would be
directed at members of the public. The Agency actively encouraged
David in writing this book, which he accomplished and his first bid at
publication, Penguin, announced that they would be keen to publish this
book.

What then happened over the next few months was that we were able
to knit together these two different threads of both the BBC series and
the Penguin book, and indeed David’s book became the BBC book of
the TV series, ‘How to Rescue a House’.

The series of eight programmes focused on individuals who, for a

variety of reasons, could not afford their own home but could see
massive potential in rescuing an empty property. The architect, Maxwell
Hutchinson, would work with these individuals to identify potential
property and then they would seek to identify the owner and find ways
of obtaining that property before bringing it back into use. During its run

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on BBC2 it attracted almost 2 million viewers – this was without a

shadow of doubt the biggest audience that the empty homes agenda
had ever attracted.

What was particularly interesting for us, especially as move into the
New Year, was that the interest generated in the programme was not
just passive interest. One of the obvious manifestations of this series
was the huge public interest in the potential of empty property.

This public interest showed itself most dramatically in hits to our

website, emails and telephone calls. There was the sudden opening up
of interest from people who wanted to explore how they could get their
hands on empty property to bring them back into use. After years of
pushing the issue uphill, trying to get public bodies to take this issue
seriously, there were hundreds of individuals who could see real
mileage in this issue for them.

What so many of the individuals wanted was information on empty

properties. A common question coming to the Empty Homes Agency’s
offices would be ‘Where can we get hold of a list?’ Of course, historically
such lists were not available, but an interesting development had come
with the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Such information held on empty property could, one could argue, be

made available to members of the public upon request in their search to
bring an empty property back into use. At the moment local authorities
are considering how they respond to this huge public interest. There are
clearly concerns around how this information may be used, in terms of a
squatter or burglar’s charter. But where you have empty property, where
nothing is happening, and it is proving to be a problem to the
community, is there a public interest in making this information
available? And at the end of the day, it would be very apparent just
walking down the street that this property is empty. This is not secret
information.

So what has happened as a result of this BBC series and Penguin book
has been an explosion of public interest. So what do we do with this all
in 2006?

Part of the answer must be realising that there is an individual

contribution to cracking the problem of empty property. We cannot
remain dependant solely on public bodies to deal with this issue, but
maybe we should look slightly broader as well than just the narrow
confines of empty residential property?

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It has been an oft-made criticism of the Empty Homes Agency, most

recently by Jon Rouse at a meeting of the London Housing Federation
and Housing Corporation, that the Empty Homes Agency is too focused,
focusing on just empty homes.

This is a fair criticism, the Agency has remained remarkably focused

over the last decade or so on this issue, and with the increase in
political priority given to empty homes, one could argue that this has
been a justifiable strategy. But with increasing action being taken on
empty property, and this increasing public interest, is now the time to
start opening up other areas of interest and potential?

One of the biggest issues of untapped potential is redundant

commercial property. By this I don’t just mean the ubiquitous subject of
flats above shops, but commercial premises no longer used in
communities, which offer residential potential. Who is leading up this
issue at the moment? Where is the Empty Homes Agency on the issue
of commercial property? Maybe this is something that the Empty Homes
Agency should get more involved in but there is clearly huge potential
here across the country in redundant commercial property.

The other area of huge interest is small parcels of land. Did you know that
English Partnerships only record sites larger than one hectare outside
London and half a hectare in London? With the current high-density
building, one can produce 50 units of housing on a hectare of housing. So
therefore we are potentially ignoring sites, small parcels of land, which
could produce anything up to 50 units of property. What a waste of a
potential resource in communities.

The critical thing about empty property, redundant commercial property

and vacant small parcels of land is that they all exist within our
communities. They’re there, they exist. Surely the critical challenge for
people over the next few years is to meet this huge public interest in the
need for affordable property with the potential in our community. This
may well not be the whole answer, but it is surely madness to ignore
empty property, commercial property or vacant small plots of land.

Another area that we are really keen to do more work on is the

environmental arguments for tackling empty homes. We had an article
published by the Guardian last year on the implications of embodied
energy between new build and refurbishment of empty homes, which

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generated huge interest. Do expect to hear more from us this year on

the environmental benefits of recycling empty homes

There’s been an explosion of interest across the country in this issue,

now must be the time to encourage greater public involvement in
bringing empty homes back into use, but also to explore far more
vigorously both redundant commercial property and small plots of land.
We are ready for this new challenge!

Jonathan Ellis is chief executive of the Empty Homes Agency

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 5
2005 Regional table of
HIP data

2005 Ownership of Empty Homes

Total Local RSL Other
Number of Authority public
Empty
Homes
North East 39,148 5,209 3,424 396

Yorkshire & 79,505 7,320 4,799 260

Humberside
East Midlands 58,419 4,985 1,792 953

Eastern Region 56,656 3,427 2,150 832

London 91,219 9,619 5,826 963

South East 91,232 3,211 3,767 720

South West 57,956 2,039 2,264 518

West Midlands 77,544 5,049 5,544 141

North West 127,473 10,618 10,887 1,450

ENGLAND TOTAL 680,412 48,594 40,613 5,666