Member Article

Abandoned North West houses to receive Government makeover

Derelict homes across the North West are to receive a £29m boost after the Government pledged to invest £91m across the country.

Communities Minister Don Foster announced the fund on Thursday, which will be invested in 6,000 empty and derelict homes across England, particularly in the North and the Midlands.

Funding will be allocated through two programmes, with £61m distributed from the second round of the empty homes programme, and £30m delivered through the second year award of the Clusters of Empty Homes programme.

Two thirds of the empty homes programme will be allocated by the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) to registered social landlords, while the remainder will go to community and voluntary organisations.

Together these funds hope to bring 3,200 homes back into use, while the empty homes programme will rejuvenate around 3,500 houses in areas where the problem is particularly acute, such as Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Middlesbrough.

Mr Foster MP, commented: “The government is doing everything possible to tackle the problem of empty homes and urban blight.

“Today I’m announcing we’re going to do even more, with towns across England benefiting from £91 million to refurbish over 6,000 empty properties to get them back into use.

“This will bring people, shops and jobs back to once abandoned areas, and provide extra affordable homes we so badly need.

“We have already made very good progress, cutting the number of long term empty homes by 40,000 but with thousands of people in this country desperate to buy a home and areas still suffering problems of urban blight we must go further still.”

Andy Rose, chief executive of the HCA, added: “We had a very encouraging response to the funding across a wide range of types of property.

“This demonstrates a strong appetite and scope for bringing empty homes and properties back into use, which will help to reinvigorate our communities and towns. We look forward to working with housing providers to bring these homes forward.”

Mr Foster visited an empty homes refurbishment project in Stoke on Trent on Thursday, where a Housing Market Renewal ‘Pathfinder’ was formerly based.

He commented: “A very significant amount of this money will benefit the Midlands and North, including towns that saw whole areas become abandoned and ‘no go’ by the previous government’s Pathfinder programme of demolitions that we have put a stop to.”

A £33m majority of funding announced today will go to the North of England, while £11m will be pumped into schemes in the Midlands.

£130m has already been invested by the Government to refurbish up to 11,500 empty houses since 2010, including £100m to bring houses to a standard suitable for affordable housing.

Mr Foster has urged councils to sign up to restoration expert and TV presenter, George Clarke’s, ten point housing regeneration review, which supports ‘sweat equity schemes’, like the one visited in Stoke on Thursday.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .