Network writes to ministers urging extension of Empty Homes Programme deadline

A letter has been written to Brandon Lewis, MP (Minister of State, Housing and Planning) and Stephen Williams, MP (Communities Minister with responsibiity for empty homes) requesting them to extend the deadline for the various Empty Homes Programmes beyond 31st March 2015. (The letter is in our Information Library here). The deadlines in question require projects to achieve practical completion: if they fail to do so, then not only would no further grant be forthcoming (normally 50% on completion) but all the grant received for the uncompleted project would be forfeit. This would create too much risk for most providers to proceed unless they had complete certainty about meeting the deadline - even if there were a very good likelihood of doing so. The net result will be under-delivery against the hoped-for numbers of units as originally announced.