2,000 homes are long-term empty in Buckinghamshire despite ‘chronic housing shortage’

A total of 5,686 homes are currently ‘vacant’, according to Buckinghamshire Council’s most recent data from October 2023 – a decrease from the high of 6,285 in 2021.

Vacant homes are defined as ‘empty properties as classified for council tax purposes and include all empty properties liable for council tax and properties that are empty but receive a council tax exemption’.

Despite a slight decrease in the total number of vacant homes across Bucks, the number of long-term vacant homes – those empty for more than six months – has been rising steadily over the past four years to a new high of 2,036.

The number of long-term empty properties is the ‘key number to look at, when it comes to empty homes’, according to James Boultbee, CEO of Wycombe Homeless Connection.

“Over 2,000 in our county,” he tells the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), “That is too high. These homes would be much better used as social housing.”

As thousands of properties stand empty across the county, more than 6,000 applicants are currently waiting for homes on the council’s housing register, ‘Bucks Home Choice’.

In addition, data shows that 2.19 households per 1,000 were threatened with homelessness in Buckinghamshire from April to June last year – putting the council in the top 10 per cent of local authorities for this measure.

During the same three-month period, the council assessed 953 households because they presented as homeless.

This is the fourth highest total of all local authorities in England, putting Buckinghamshire behind only Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester.

James said: “Buckinghamshire also has an above average number of people sleeping rough. We need to reduce this.

“To do that we need to see more affordable housing made available. This doesn’t only have to mean building more.”

The charity boss is not the only one calling for Buckinghamshire’s thousands of empty homes to be put to good use.

Conservative, Labour and Independent councillors raised the issue during a meeting of the council’s housing committee in November.

Isobel Darby, a Tory councillor for Chalfont St Peter, called for the council to “consider all possible routes” to house people waiting for homes.

She explained: “I’m talking about bringing empty privately owned homes back into use…We have got a massive problem. It is only getting bigger.”

Since the meeting, Buckinghamshire Council has taken action, by recently announcing the removal of council tax discounts for empty homes and introducing a 100 per cent council tax premium when a home has been empty for 12 months.

But the council has stopped short of imposing a council tax premium on second homes – an additional measure proposed by some councillors.

Some have praised the council for trying to bring empty homes back into use by scrapping council tax reductions.

“I am very happy with that,” Beaconsfield resident Barry Quelch, 67, told the LDRS, “But on the other side of the coin, I’m happy for people to privately own [empty homes] and pay for it – it will be more money going into the local authority.”

But bringing Buckinghamshire’s empty homes back into use is only part of the solution to cutting down housing waiting lists, according to Polly Neate, chief executive of housing and homeless charity Shelter.

She told the LDRS that building a new generation of affordable good quality social homes will also be crucial.

“With so many families stuck on social housing waiting lists, it’s frustrating to see properties sitting empty,” she said.

She added: “Getting long-term empty homes back into use as social renting could be an important part of the puzzle in some places. But even if we filled every empty home, we still wouldn’t have solved our chronic housing shortage.”

Some of Buckinghamshire’s empty homes stand empty for so long because the price they are being sold for is wrong, according to Nabeel Jafar, an assistant sales manager at Hamptons in Beaconsfield.

He told the LDRS: “Primarily it would be when they are looking to achieve a certain price and they are not listening to the changing market and tweaking that price perhaps, which may be acceptable to a buyer.”

He added: “The difference is, two years ago, the average time to sell a property was a couple of months, now it might be three to six months.”

The estate agent welcomed the council ending empty homes council tax discounts, saying: “Any change that is going to bring more homes onto the market is positive.”

James Boultbee agreed, but said the council could go even further, including by taking out empty dwelling management orders, which give authorities the right to take possession of a property without affecting its ownership.

He said: “Properties subject to these conditions could then be prioritised as homes for homeless people.”

Buckinghamshire Council has been approached for comment.