Over seventy council homes in Harlow are lying empty
News / Mon 18th Mar 2019 at 07:01am
HARLOW Council has explained why up to seventy council homes in Harlow are sitting empty.
Their statement comes after a government report highlighted that Harlow had seen one of the biggest increases in unoccupied housing in the country
The report did state that the increase covered both council and private.
http://www.yourharlow.com/2019/03/12/massive-rise-in-number-of-empty-homes-in-harlow/
With people crying out for council houses, we asked Harlow Council how many homes were lying empty and why?
Councillor Mark Wilkinson, Portfolio Holder for Housing, said: “The turnaround times for empty Council homes is a key performance indicator for the Council. The current target is that the average time to re-let a Council home should be 16 days. As of January 2019 this target is being met by the Council.
“Before our homes are re-let essential repairs and improvements are made. The time taken to carry out these works depends on the condition the property is left in and the refurbishment required. The current number of vacant Council homes is 70. We are seeing a trend towards more homes becoming vacant, some for longer periods due to the complexity of repairs required and complete refurbishments needed. We are also seeing more tenants wanting to downsize.
“However, the biggest number of empty homes in the town is those which are not owned by Harlow Council. As of today 666 private properties in the town are classed as unoccupied and substantially unfurnished. This will be due to a combination of homes which have recently become unoccupied in last three months, homes that have been unoccupied longer than this and homes that have been unoccupied for two years or more.
“These figures could also include new developments in Harlow, where new homes are deemed complete or could be complete within the next three months.”
Jon
2019-03-18 08:18:29
There is always going to be some ‘churn’ in a housing stock of 9,000+ houses. While of course vacancies need to be minimised as houses are refurbished, having significantly less than 1% vacant at any one time is a performance that any private company would be pleased with. The problem is not the tiny percentage of vacancies, it is government policy that has prevented councils building the social houses that are needed, and forcing the sell off of the ones they have through ‘right-to-buy’.
tenpin
2019-03-18 11:16:57
As a former Housing Manager with Harlow Council at first glance the figure of 70 empty council homes does seem rather high, but I suspect this includes those undergoing refurbishment at Prentice Place. At any one time there will be a number requiring a lot of work before they can be re-let and historically a turn round time of less than 3 weeks is on the face of it pretty good. To hear that 666 private homes are empty is another matter however, when you take the figures that there are about 37000 homes in the town of which 10000 are council owned.It would be interesting to note how many have been empty for more than 6 months. It is also interesting to note that Cllr Wilkinson says that more tenants are looking to downsize. This is likely to be mirrored in the private sector and just underlines the policy of The Harlow Alliance Party who wish to see all homes built in the future by the council on it's land being 2 bedroomed bungalows, thus helping to release the 1500 houses in Harlow being occupied by just one person and hundreds more homes occupied by two people. They are cheaper and easier to build and would help redress the imbalance between the number of houses in the town and the number of homes suitable for older residents and those with physical impairment.
Pytr Kropotkin
2019-03-18 11:19:42
Is this really news? less than 8 in every 1000 houses temporarily empty? There will always be some properties in flux at any given time. Would this excellent performance by the council/HTS not be better represented by the headline 99.92% of council homes tenanted?
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