We need more homes!

• For decades we have been FAILING to build the number of homes we need

• In 2008 the number of homes being started was the lowest peacetime level since 1924! In 2010 we completed only 102,830. We built more homes each year in the final decade of Queen Victoria’s reign when the population was half the size!

• There is a chronic shortfall of affordable homes! 1.5 million council homes have been taken out of the system since 1979 due to the ‘Right to Buy’ Scheme

• The coalition government itself says we need to build 290,500 homes every year until 2031.

• In the 12 months to September 2012 only 117,190 homes were completed…that’s a shortfall of 173,310 homes already!

• How can the country afford to have 710,000 empty homes of which 259,000 are long term empties?

Moving Forward

• Empty Homes is now very much on the Government’s agenda

• I was appointed Independent Empty Homes Advisor to the Government

• National Low Cost Loan Funds have been launched in England, Scotland and Wales

• Fantastic innovative schemes have been launched across the country (many including Stoke, Leeds and ‘No Use Empty’ initiative in Kent)

• The number of empty homes has begun to reduce!...the tide is turning!

‘The Secret Millions’

March 2013Channel 4

THANK YOU!