Green councillors in Exeter are stepping up their campaign to address Exeter’s housing crisis. They are demanding the Labour-run City Council takes urgent action on empty homes, pointing to the ‘dismal’ record of pursuing empty homes over the last five years.
Green Party councillor, Diana Moore, said:
“There are 3,584 applicants on Exeter’s Housing waiting list [1] and there was an average of 16 people new to sleeping rough each month last year [2]. Yet the Labour-run council has a dismal record on taking control of empty homes to put them to good use.
“In Exeter, there are estimated to be over 500 long term empty homes [3]. But the Council has investigated just 35 potentially empty properties in the last five years. There have been no compulsory purchases or Empty Dwelling Management Orders issued or enforced sales – all powers available to the Council.
“When I raised this matter at a scrutiny meeting I was told that action would be taken in due course. With the huge number of homeless people in Exeter, including people sleeping rough, ‘in due course’ is just not good enough. We need urgent action and Labour must use the powers available to them to put empty homes to good use to help address our housing crisis.”
As National Empty Homes week concludes [4], Councillor James Banyard added:
“There are over a quarter of a million long-term empty homes in the UK. This is a scandal when there are so many people in desperate need of housing. We cannot afford to waste such properties and councils have powers to act on empty dwellings and they should do so, to make sure these homes house those in need [5].
“Creating homes from empty properties also makes environmental sense. It reduces the amount of land needed for housing developments and saves substantial amounts of material compared to building new homes. While most empty homes don’t need much work to bring them back into use, they offer an opportunity for retrofit, to make them highly energy efficient to reduce bills for future residents. The Labour government must provide funding to councils so they can retrofit empty homes to the highest standard as part of a nationwide programme of upgrading our housing stock.”
Notes
[1] Budget consultation – Priority 3: Homes – Exeter City Council
[2] Rough sleeping data framework, December 2024 – GOV.UK
[3] SouthWest2024LTEHand2ndsREFERENCE.pdf