Minutes:
With Communities Minister, Don Foster, having revealed that over £63million additional funding has been unlocked by bringing thousands of empty homes back into use, can the Portfolio Holder tell me how many empty homes Medway Council has brought back into use since May 2011 and what percentage of Medway’s empty homes that figure represents?
Councillor Doe stated that the Government had announced on 27 September 2012 that as part of its New Homes Bonus, it would be providing Local Authorities with a total of £63m by the end of the current financial year in respect of the Empty Homes element of the scheme.
The Council monitored these figures on a quarterly basis so since the beginning of the financial year for 2011/12 until the end of the first quarter of 2012/13, 204 long-term empty homes had been brought into use. At the last time of measuring, the figures for the last quarter had yet to be finalised but they were likely to be an additional 26 homes, which would give an expected total of 230 by the end of the quarter.
The number of long term empty homes as a percentage of all private sector homes was currently 1.3%, which was well below the level experienced in other parts of Kent where levels were more than twice that. The number brought back as a percentage of those empty was 18.5%.
Tony Jeacock asked whether the Portfolio Holder agreed that a more vigorous endeavour by the Council to identify Medway’s empty properties, coupled to a determination to return them in a fit and proper state for occupational use would do much to help the homeless, much for employment in the construction industry and do much to offer real and proper apprenticeships in the Medway Towns and if not, why not?
Councillor Doe stated that he did not think that a more vigorous approach in the sense of simply trying harder would actually make that much difference since the Council already had a vigorous approach. A measure of empty homes represented a snapshot and there are many quite good reasons why some homes are empty. Whilst empty homes ought to be recycled where possible there could of course be a number of reasons why the homes were empty and if there was not a reasonable number of empty homes then actually the market churn, (i.e. the buying and selling of homes) would become impossible.
He stated that he did not take this complacently, that the Council was doing relatively well when considering the resources available and whilst the provision of funding to local authorities through the new bonus was a new stream, it needed to be noted that other funding streams to the Council were reducing, particularly the Formula Grant which was reducing from £86m in 2011/2012 down to £69.7m in 2014-15. Councillor Doe said it was unlikely therefore that the Council would able to deploy extra resources in the present climate of austerity. The Council used the resources available to the very best advantage and the record showed that it was achieving considerable success.