To receive petitions and public questions in accordance with Standing Order 9.
Minutes:
Click here to view the recording of this item on You Tube
The Mayor invited Brenda Kent to ask her Public Question of Council.
"May I first of all congratulate the Council on the efficiency with which I understand homeless people have been housed during the pandemic.
Looking to the future and with avoiding building on precious green open spaces and wildlife habitats in mind, could you tell me please whether the Council keeps statistics on how much long-term vacant property there is in the Borough that is already designated for residential use or which could be converted into high standard residential accommodation; and are there any schemes or incentives which would encourage and help owners to offer such properties for sale or rent?"
Councillor Lawrence, Cabinet Member for Housing gave the following response:
“The council recognises the importance of bringing long term properties back into use, for a number of reasons including to ensure that the best use is made of the areas existing housing stock. The councils Long Term Empty Homes Strategy can be viewed on the website. The majority of empty homes are owned by individuals, but there have been some landlords with significant numbers of stock in management that have had a number of vacant schemes over an extended period of years. The council seeks to incentivise owners of empty properties to bring them back into use, will proactively look at problem solving, where that might include identifying a third party to sell the property to, or enforcement action where appropriate. There are records continually maintained on the number of empty homes. There is no discount for an empty and unfurnished property, and after two years of it being empty an additional levy of 100% of the annual council tax is payable (so they pay double council tax). From 1 April 2020, after 5 years of being empty the levy goes up to 200%, and from 1 April 2021 after 10 years of being empty the levy goes up to 300%.
Over the years there have been a number of targeted central government funding streams that we have used in conjunction with housing association partners to either acquire or lease homes that have been long term empty properties where appropriate. In these scenarios homes are brought back into use as social housing.
The Council is currently looking at opportunities in the town centre to re-purpose vacant commercial building and convert upper floors. There are several aligned government funding streams for this type of work including the Town’s Fund and the High Street Heritage Action Zone programme. There have been some changes to planning use class orders over the summer that create greater flexibility in the context of re-purposing retail space.
Finally, on the point of wildlife habitats and open spaces – these are thing considered as part of planning decision making processes. The encouragement (through policy mechanisms) to utilise brown-field land or existing property needs to be considered in the context of economic and commercial perspectives.”
By way of supplementary Mrs Kent asked if the post of empty homes officer still existed, to which it was explained that the role was carried out within a department.