The Welsh Houses to Homes initiative continues to deliver solid results according to the latest Interim Evaluation report by Sheffield Hallam University, now including data from the first two years of the scheme and collected up to March 2014.
The outcomes and messages are in line with those reported in the previous evaluation, which we reviewed last March in our story on the subject - Welsh Houses to Homes Initiative latest update, - but there are one or two new points starting to emerge that should prompt further analysis in the future.
Providing impetus
Particularly interesting from the practitioner point of view is the extent to which Houses to Homes seems to have been the catalyst for more vigorous empty homes work across the board. From the baseline 2011-12 figure of 1,372 "direct actions" on empty properties returned into use by local authorities across Wales, the number has risen exponentially to 1,809 in 2012-13 and 4,554 in 2013-14.
The percentage of this increase that can be attributed directly to offers of funding from the Houses to Homes pot was relatively low and indeed starting to decline: "financial assistance" represented 7%, 12% and 9% of the total actions, respectively, in the three years. We can reasonably infer that the strategic developments sparked by the initiative, rather then just the money itself, were the vital ingredient. It is worth quoting the report at length on this:
4.10 Houses into Homes was reported to have raised the profile of empty homes work in its first year of operation and resulted in an increase in corporate commitment to tackling the problem. Benefits continued to accrue during the second year of the scheme, with 15 out of 22 local authority empty homes officers reporting that corporate commitment to tackling empty homes increased in 2013/14 and no officers reporting a decrease in commitment. Various explanations were provided for the continuation of a trend reported in 2012/13, following the launch of Houses into Homes. One regional coordinator referred to a 'cycle of interest' in empty homes, whereby awareness about the problem of empty homes had been raised, in part by the launch and related marketing of the Houses into Homes scheme. This prompted more owners to contact their local authority seeking advice or assistance and more complaints from residents about empty homes in their area. This, in turn, was reported to have prompted local councillors to take more interest in the problem [p35].
Undoubtedly the British government's empty homes funding in England and the New Homes Bonus (which is not incidentally available in Wales) have also given some impetus to empty homes work. Nevertheless, compared with the Welsh experience, it is hard to resist the view that an opportunity to harness the funding to building local initiatives has been squandered.
Fewer loan applications
It is surprising, in the context of this increased activity, to discover a decline in the number of applications for loans from 241 in 2012-13 to 173 in 2013-14. This will deserve close scrutiny, the main question being whether it reflects a finite supply of opportunities, one that would always set limits to the number of loans that could be granted and would thus indicate a limit to the size of any pot of funding that should be allocated to such a scheme. The Kent experience might be drawn into answering this question.
Key variables
It has now become even more apparent that there are significant differences between different types of scheme, most notably between conversion projects, particularly of commercial premises, and projects involving individual dwellings. Another significant variable is between projects undertaken by limited companies (ie developers) and individuals.
These differences are commented on in the text and sometimes further explanation or figures are supplied. But what we need in order to make the optimum use of the lessons that the initiative provides, is more systematic reporting of results at a finer level of granularity, taking relevant distinctions more clearly into account and with less averaging of figures.
Similarly, there is not a great deal of analysis at local authority level: mostly the figures provided are national. But the profile of local authorities differs widely between, say, major cities like Cardiff, the Welsh Valleys with their extensive industrial heritage, and the sparsely populated rural authorities. Where local authority figures are provided, as in the map of applications received, the report does not provide critical information such as the recorded numbers of empties and the (more reliable) figure for the overall number of dwellings in the different authorities.
So we look forward to future reports - or at least the final report - putting us in a better position to establish correlations between different factors, not least of which might be the relative resource devoted to empty homes work in individual local authorities.
Bedtime reading
Regardless of whether more information might be provided, anyone involved professionally or strategically in empty homes work should certainly study this report and its predecessors. They are a goldmine.
Find out more
The evaluation reports and monitoring data associated with 'Houses to Homes' can be retrieved via our Library from here.
Previous Empty Homes Network stories on the House to Homes Initiative can be retrieved by following the Wales tag in our Places tag cloud.