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E-Mail: Desmond.Kilroy@emptyhomes.com

Minutes of the meeting of the London Empty Property

Officers’ Forum held at:

The Conference Suite

The Association of London Government
59 ½ Southwark Street
London SE1 OAL (London Bridge Tube)

On Friday 8th September 2006

Present
Paul Palmer (PP), Chair, City of Westminster
Leah Walley (LW), LB Havering
Yonnette Roberts (YR), LB Havering
Jane McInerney (JMI), LB Richmond
Maxine Wilson (MW), LB Lambeth
Celia Esimaje (CE), LB Southwark
Michelle Williams (MW), LB Southwark
Janet Wade (JW), North London Sub-region
Nigel Ward (NW), LB Newham
Max Edgar (ME), LB Newham
Paul Ahmed (PA), LB Waltham Fst
Nick Long (NL), LB Lewisham
Eoin Donnelly (ED), LB Hillingdon
Raj Bhullar (RB), LB Hounslow
Desmond Kilroy (DK), Empty Homes Agency
Andrew James (AJ), Empty Homes Agency
Peter Snell (PS), East London Renewal Parthership
Dianne Blazer (DB), LB Bexley
Martin Perrigo (MP), LB Hammersmith & Fulham
Justine Dornan, (JD), RB Kensington & Chelsea
Sharon Agard (SA), LB Ealing
Janet Trench (JT), Housing Corporation
Driss Charrouf (DC), LB Brent
David Ireland (DI), Empty Homes Agency
Dave Carter (DC), LB Enfield
Anoma Amarajeewa, (AA), LB Haringey
Trevor Pask (TP), Off The Streets Into Work
Ashley Horsey (AH), Local Space

1. The Chair opened the meeting and welcomed those attending.

2. London Sub-regional updates

2 .1 North London Sub-Region (NLSR) - JW reported that the NLSR has extended
it’s grant regime by launching grants aimed at owners & owner occupation, This is
 in addition to PSL grants & other landlord incentive schemes. The new grants are
for owners who do not own existing property or who are currently in unsuitable
accommodation and want to use the empty property as their primary home, or
first time buyers who want to buy an empty property needing repairs. There is an
additional incentive to key workers to buy property. The grant has a 20 year grant
condition, so if the property is sold in this time it is re-paid in full. Two enforcement
officers have been recruited by the NLSR to work closely with the boroughs &
increase enforcement activity. It will involve setting up systems and
procedures and in some cases taking on cases. A 'best course of action' analysis
is being developed, which will allow officers to decide whether CPO, enforced sale
or EDMO will be the most appropriate action for problematic long term
empties. JW was interested in knowing if any boroughs have developed a
financial calculation to analyse the 'risk' of doing an EDMO on a property. CE
stated that LB Southwark has done a calculation of rental income vs expenditure
on repairs. The Mori survey of empty property owners in the NLSR has just been
completed with the final report expected in one months time. This will inform the
sub-regional strategy complementing individual borough strategies. A meeting is
being organized for early October for all RSLs active in the NLSR to encourage
partnership working on several empty homes initiatives. JT enquired about key
workers who cease to be key workers.

2 .2 East London Sub Region (ELSR) - PS reported that there is a shortage of

housing across the ELSR and recognition that empty properties are a way to
generate large family houses. The ELSR has added to it’s Decent Homes
Programme a commitment to generate large family units from empties. The GOL
has authorised reallocating funding across the sub-region for this purpose. None
of the ELSR boroughs have a dedicated FT EPO. Recruitment of more officers is
imminent. The next meeting of the ELSR is scheduled for 11 Sept.

2 .3 South East London Sub Region (SELSR) – CE reported that a private sector
and empty homes project manager for the region has been recruited & would be
in post shortly. The SELSR is looking at the possibility of commissioning joint
legal advice region wide for economies of scale for EDMOs. AmicusHorizon (RSL)
has produced a ready reckoner EDMO calculator, a basic tool to see if a property
considered for an EDMO would actually work over the 7-year final EDMO period.
This exists as an Excel Spreadheet and is available on request. The SELSR is
working with Hyde Housing who were given the largest TSH allocation in London -
£6m in total. This will be split roughly between £2m on unimproved works and
£4m on improved such as PSL. AmicusHorizon were allocated £1.8m in reserve,
some issues still to be sorted out with the Housing Corporation. The SELSR will
be taking part in the bus publicity being co-ordinated by the EHA and 10 bus
routes within the region have been identified as part of this. A very successful
Landlords Day was held on March 17th & attended by over 350 landlords. DB
explained that regional pot funding received by LB Bexley would be used on
small interest free revolving loans tied into their PSL scheme, to bring back
properties empty longer than six months. It is either recouped from the rents over
a period of time or a rent-free period depending on the amount and lease period.
This can be used in conjunction with a 10k grant. CE- LB Bromley will be offering
small grants to help owners left with empty properties through inheritance to
enable clearance of the property to ready it for sale. There are many 100s of
these in the borough. LB Southwark will continue giving Empty Property Grants
as will LB Lewisham. YR asked about Landlord accreditation. CE responded that
within LB Southwark accredited landlords are eligible for extra funding. JW
added that within the NLSR 5 of the 6 boroughs offer PSL grants (which are now
evolving); all ask for landlord acceditation as part of grant conditions. PS enquired
whether the LB Bexley interest free loan means no (re) payments are made in
the first year. DB replied that there is a reduced rent period.
2 .4 South West London Sub Region (SWLSR) – MW reported that LB Lambeth &
LB Sutton are considering EDMOs. Lambeth is still offering Empty Property
Grants at up to 20K per unit part of the strategy to tackle poor stock. Landlords
forums are still being arranged by each of the boroughs. NL enquired whether
any one had done an EDMO yet to which the answer was no. There is a CPO
strategy for the SWLSR. LB Lambeth & LB Wandsworth are continuing to CPO.
Lambeth also carries out Enforced Sales. Lambeth policy is to work with a list of
preferred landlords. CE added that LB Southwark no longer work with preferred
landlords and instead sell on property with conditions such no landbanking. There
is a CPO enquiry in LB Southwark on 7/8 November for those interested.

2 .5 West London Sub Region (WLSR) – MP reported that the WLSR has held 3
meetings with borough representatives since producing a written strategy – to
agree action on milestones. The sub-region has access to £3m to bring back 372
long term vacant units by end of 2008. Each borough has a target of 27 units per
year, but the target could equally be achieved by concentrated local success.
It was decided at first to allocate the grant element of the funding equally across
the region. This gave each borough an average of £7.5k per unit. The WLSR is
currently reviewing how to re-allocate the money according to rates of progress
by end of 2nd quarter. As at 7th Sept. LBHF has 81 long-term vacant units in the
grant pipeline. The other 6 boroughs have achieved 54 potential units in total.
The sub-region therefore has 135 potential units against this years requirement of
189. £5k has been allocated to advertising sub-regionally on buses. The EHA is
coordinating this. In West London this pays for 30 buses £20k has been allocated
to an on-going newspaper publicity campaign. JW enquired about how core and
additional funding is being allocated as there is no distinction on the monitoring
form. MP replied that mixed funding can be used on a single property; the issue is
to avoid double count the property. PS added that it depends on what conditions
were agreed on the GOL application. LB Hounslow is leading on recruitment of a
Private sector project manager. The ALG has now circulated the new advert to all
the boroughs. Closing date Monday 11th Sept. The project managers must liaise
with the sub-regional coordinators to ensure monitoring is efficiently done,
especially where other income streams are utilised to supplement the vacant
homes grants. The new Conservative administration in LBHF is very interested in
vacant homes because of their association with crime, anti-social behaviour,
vandalism and blight. The WLSR is presently in discussion with them about the
details of how to further develop this area of work.

3. PSL in LB Lewisham – NL gave some background to the LB Lewisham PSL

arrangements. 10 years ago the council ran a small PSL scheme with a small
core team. The number of recognized homeless families in the borough has
recently increased dramatically. The council was also reviewed and found to be
illegally turning homeless families away and as a result the PSL initiative has now
undergone expansion. The scheme is under new management with 17 staff and
an ongoing programme of acquiring PSL property. The main elements of the
scheme are as follows:
• cherry picking -only 1& 2 beds
• no x3 beds
• only taking 1 flat in a block only
• no flats above shops
• all managed in house
• paying "market rents"
• not leasing out of borough
 • surplus helping to sustain / fund other initiatives -RIA and Fresh Start (Lewisham
rehouse families outside London for example in Yorkshire).

Recently, LB Lewisham has had to make use of B & B s with approx. 60-70
families now housed in B&Bs. JMI cited the BVPI 23 which stipulates that by 2010
LA s should dramatically reduce their use of temporary accommodation and that
this is going to be a problem to achieve. PS added that inevitably it will be easier
to obtain social housing in some boroughs than in others and may mean
boroughs work to not have the obligation to house those in need.
4. The Living Space (LS) model – Temporary to Permanent Housing – AH
introduced the project, a newly registered RSL supplying homes to LB Newham.
Essentially, LS with central government backing was set up to capture the
revenue flow from Town Halls into private pockets under PSL deals etc by
providing long-term social housing assets instead. The model involves acquiring
properties on the private market and then leasing these for social housing initially
as temporary accommodation and later to make these available as permanent
social housing having paid off some or all of the debt. £600m is currently paid to
private landlords each year for short term leased temporary accommodation with
no longer term benefits. The DCLG target is to halve that figure by 2010. Benefits
of the LS scheme include: maintenance of stock for social housing and
improvements to the stock. LS will likely be linking further with LB Newham, with
it’s CPO and other enforcement programmes. Further details available here.

5. Transitional Space Project - TP

The Transitional Spaces Project, a project of Off the Streets Into Work (OSW), is
a three year initiative funded under the Treasury's Invest to Save Budget (ISB)
The intention is to link the best elements of existing pathways to work and rent
deposit initiatives in a focused scheme to work to move 300 clients currently living
in the hostel sector into work and the private rented sector. The project will run in
two areas - London (230 clients) and Newcastle (70 clients), The project is
currently in the advanced planning stage and aims to begin taking the first
referrals in January 2007. Two organisations, Broadway and Threshold will be
undertaking the property acquisition role, and the link to local authorities empty
property strategies is that a large percentage of the properties are expected to be
procured by Broadway, in particular to be a result of liaison with certain local
authorities - such as studio and one bed properties which do not meet the
requirements of local authorities own initiatives. This work builds upon the
presentation made by Mark Grant of Broadway to the February meeting. The
purpose of attending the LEPOF was to raise awareness of the scheme and make
links with local authorities to prevent conflicts with any schemes that individual
boroughs may be operating

Notes: OSW is planning to hold a conference on the 16th of November where

there will be a workshop on the TSP. Any officers interested in attending can
contact Vanessa Grendle on 020 7089 2734. vanessagendle@osw.org.uk

JT suggested that further LEPOF meetings might want to include a slot for a
report back from the London Empty Homes Working Group, the first meeting of
which is on the 17th October. Each of the sub regions nominates officers to attend
the meetings.

The meeting subsequently closed. (The next meeting will be in February)