On the day that the government's statutory instrument to make it harder for local authorities to obtain Empty Dwelling Management Orders came into force, it was reported that South Tyneside Council had secured 11 EDMOs at a single hearing of the Residential Property Tribunal. The homes will be refurbished with finance in part from the government's £100million empty homes fund.
More details can be found on the South Tyneside website here and in the Shields Gazette here.
South Tynside's Keith Shields won the Grafton Empty Homes Practitioner of the Year Award at the Empty Homes Network National Empty Homes Conference in May 2012 in large part because of his work in developing the scheme to bring these properties back into use.