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A prominent Tory thinker has suggested that English councils should be obliged to sell off an estimated 31,000 councils houses and flats currently lying long-term empty.
Harry Phibbs, writing on the Conservative Home website, estimates that a sales drive of these properties would have the twin advantage of easing the National Debt and also allowing development opportunities that would increase the housing supply.
He claims Labour councils are the worst offenders, saying: “In London, we have Southwark topping the league of shame with 1,211 empty council homes. Next comes Ealing with 1,039. Camden is on 691. Newham on 617. Outside London, we have Sheffield on 1,205. Leeds on 728. Newcastle on 681. Gateshead on 625, Leicester on 418.”
He estimates that after taking into account discounts applied to Right To Buy purchases in England, plus some £50,000 per property to cover repairs, each unit would be worth an average £125,000 - netting over £3.8 billion in money to public authorities if they were all sold.
Phibbs concludes in his article: “Local authorities should cease being allowed to hoard those assets. They should be put up for sale. Some of the proceeds could be retained by the councils for new homes and improving the existing stock. Some could be retained by central Government to reduce borrowing.
“Incentives and ‘good practice guidance’ are evidently not enough. Forced auction sales are needed to end the scandal of council housing being allowed to remain vacant for long periods.”
You can see the full article here.
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A Tory ‘ thinker’, now that is an oxymoron. I have a better idea, why don’t these councils simply renovate them and really alleviate the housing crisis, there you go… not so hard.
if they are empty who has the Right to Buy? If they are to be bought why do they need £50k spent on them first? And if they exist why are the LAs not bringing them back into use as council Houses?
Unfortunately I can't read the full story as the link is missing!
Presumably Councils realise they can't renovate properties for an economically viable cost.
A while ago we bought an ex Council flat that needed a new kitchen, rewiring, replastering, sound proof ceiling, fully redecorating, etc. It took us about 4 weeks and £12000. The Council flat upstairs was having a new kitchen fitted at the same time. Tiny little kitchen took 2 months and according to the contractors £16000. Just for the kitchen!
I bought a council house direct from Norwich City Council some years back, it had sat empty for 3 years, the tenant who had lived there since it was built in 1953 was moves just around the corner, cracks in internal walls caused by a leaking clay drain pipe, the drain pipe was replaced for a plastic one, cost less than £500, cracks repaired, re plastered, gas central heating installed, decorated and successfully rented ever since, councils just cannot be bothered to carry out these kind of repairs, which has been great for us landlords
That’s the difference between private enterprise that know what they are doing and publicity sector officialdom wasting public money, a contractor working for them will spend half the day every day reading their specification and the Bill of quantities full on boloney, instead of getting on with the job, I have seen it going on. Jo you are a Brilliant Contracts Manager.
I bought a house that had been done by BBC changing rooms what a bodge and make believe. I put the lot in the skip, you don’t cover up faults but put it right, for example they had put a false drop beam box in the kitchen. I dismantled it to investigate and found a large crack where ceiling had dropped 50mm because of unsupported breeze block wall above, so instead of inserting support beam they hid the fault. The kitchen was a disaster they had created the units with scaffolding tubes I kid you not.
Micheal
I discovered some of my tenants, who weren't working watching changing rooms and insisting that their property could be renovated in very short order. I realised that a lot of these programs cater to the feckless and wind them up, quite deliberately!
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