Every year, at our
Annual Conference, we present awards to recognise excellence in empty homes work. The Awards Ceremony is sponsored by
Grafton UK Ltd. again this year. [Picture: Dave Stott of Grafton presents Practitioner of the Year Award 2015 to Benard Goren of Hull City Council].
The closing date for submissions for these awards is
midnight, Sunday, 1st May (in case you were stuck for things to do on a Bank Holiday weekend!) Submissions should be clear and to the point and no more than two sides of A4, maximum 1200 words, or the equivalent in an email, per award
. You can send us more if you want - e.g. before and after pictures - but in evaluating the awards we will only look at the first 1200 words of the first two pages (which should therefore be self-contained).
There are five awards this year, as follows.
Empty Homes Practitioner of the Year 2016
Sponsored for a sixth year by Grafton UK Ltd.
Please tell us why the nominated person deserves the award. We are interested in any of the following:
- innovation
- dedication
- organisation
- .... and/or any other quality or achievement that you think deserves recognition.
Don't be embarrassed to nominate yourself. Empty Homes Practitioners often work on their own and don't have colleagues that know how good they are!
Innovation Award
Sponsored by Carson Millican, trading as Empty Property Solutions Ltd.
Empty property practitioners excel at providing a range of solutions to the problem of wasted homes.
This award has been retitled to cover individual interventions or entire schemes. We're looking for
creative and
original approaches, systems, interventions or whatever that have demonstrated their value in helping bring empty homes back into use.
Let us know how you made it happen. Suitable submissions will be featured in the Practice section of our website.
Best Local Authority/Community Housing Organisation Partnership
Sponsored this year by Grafton UK Ltd.
Research by David Mullins and Halima Sacranie* has highlighted the importance of partnership for organisations that were funded through CLG’s Community Grants Programme. The contribution made by partnerships between community based housing organisations and local authorities is particularly evident in the research report. We welcome submissions from either or both that demonstrate one or more of the following
- how a local authorities and community housing organisations have helped one another achieve their objectives
- excellence in the partnership framework employed by the partners
If the submission is from one particular organisation, we’ll look to get evidence that the submission is supported by the other partner(s).
Best Local Authority/Housing Association Partnership
Sponsored this year by Grafton UK Ltd.
Partnerships between local authorities and housing associations can also play a vital part in bringing empty homes back into use. Since the 1990s, such partnerships have often declined or disappeared, but the HCA’s empty homes funding programme did go some way to helping rebuild a culture of joint working.
We welcome submissions that
- highlight the results achieved by local authorities and housing associations working together either strategically or or a specific programme
- document the partnership mechanisms that have produced those results.
Best Use of Media Award
New this year, thanks to sponsorship from Grafton UK Ltd.
Effective use of the media can make a huge difference to our work, highlighting the value of what we do both to the communities we serve and to those who fund or employ us. It can also help build awareness of the help available to those who need it most i.e. empty property owners and/or to the costs and risks of keeping a property empty.
By sponsoring this new award, Grafton want to build recognition of this important strand of empty homes work. We'd like to see submissions that cover any of the following:
- effective use of social media
- developing high quality media materials
- new channels for outreach
- targeted campaigns
- building support amongst funders and employers
- .... or anything else that you can think of that involves communication and media.
Judging Panel
The Empty Homes Awards will be judged by a panel chaired by
Nick Pritchard-Gordon (Chair of the Empty Homes Network and Empty Homes Officer at Reading Borough Council),
Andrew Lavender of Housing Training and Law Consultancy Ltd,
Jon Fitzmaurice, OBE, Director of self-help-housing.org, and a representative of the sponsoring organisation for each award. In the event of a tie,
Nick Pritchard-Gordon will have a casting vote.
Please note: the
Practitioner of the Year award is only available to
Full Members of the Empty Homes Network (Corporate, Collective or Individual).
Sorry but we can’t offer free or discounted Conference attendance fees to the winners. However, there will be a photo opportunity during the Conference and we publish and make available pictures of winners receiving their awards. The winning submissions are also featured in news stories after the event.
Please send your nominations to events@ehnetwork.org.uk
*(
Evaluation of the Empty Homes Community Grants Programme (EHCGP) - Midlands region, Baseline Case Studies Report: Housing and Communities Research Group, University of Birmingham, April 2014)
Thanks also to our main Conference sponsor Ad Hoc Property Management Ltd.
