Last week was national Empty Homes Week, a campaign set up to raise awareness about the negative effects that empty homes can have on our neighbourhoods that could otherwise be put to better use.

There are over 250,000 homes across England that have stood empty for over six months, and the same amount of homes sitting empty as second homes or ‘furnished empties’ as well. Any given night in the UK around one million homes will sit empty without residents in despite the fact a quarter of a million people in our country are in need of a home, and these number are only getting bigger.

Tackling this issue head on would fill up empty homes which come at a significant detriment to our neighbourhoods, help tackle the growing problem of homelessness by getting people off the streets and into the homes that they need, as well as helping with our efforts to save the environment by upgrading and retrofitting existing properties rather than building new homes that wastes both money and energy.

Sadly Wansbeck is awash with empty homes, in particular in the most deprived pockets of our communities. With the right political action these homes could be put to good use rather than sitting there damaging the community and crumbling down.
I have been working alongside members of the communities to tackle this issues around the constituency for a number of years. But local authorities must be given more money and have the willingness to use their powers to tackle the problem of empty homes to get our neighbourhoods cleaned up and people into these homes who need them.

There are solutions out there that could help solve these issues. Back in 2017 Labour published a mini housing manifesto that promised to give councils much more power to raise tax on properties that were left vacant for over a year and force local councils to develop empty homes strategies to bring these homes back into use. This would also have helped tackle the problem of homelessness and get people who are sleeping on the streets back into a home giving them a better chance of getting their lives back on track and back into work.

But these measures require bold actions and radical thinking, neither of which will happen while the Conservatives are in Downing Street and County Hall.