The final figures for Year 4 allocations of New Homes Bonus have now been published.
You can download the relevant spreadsheets from the
CLG website or if you're a member you can log in and refer to the EHN analyses of the cumulative figures for years 1 to 4 and the total allocated for 2014-15 based on the 2012-13 CTB return:
There are only 4 changes for numbers of empties returned to use between the provisional and final figures and all but one of these are simply filling in figures missing from the provisional dataset.
The figures reveal that returning long-term empty homes to use continues to play an important part in earning New Homes Bonus. Concerns about changes in council tax discounts seem not to have been realised.
Birmingham, LIverpool, Manchester, and Croydon top the table for numbers of LTEs returned to use, with over 1,000 units each. At the other end sit Harrow, Hounslow, Kensington and Chelsea and finally Camden, the latter showing an increase of 322 in the number of LTEs. The Camden figures are something of a surprise given that Camden has been widely reported as lobbying for a more punitive empty homes premium regime on the back of successes claimed so far: Theo Blackwell, the Cabinet Member for Finance, wrote
a piece in the Guardian Professional stating
Since agreeing to the 50% premium, the number of long-term empty properties in Camden has fallen by 34%.
These figures of course do not tell us anything about the the empty homes performance of the local authorities in question: primarily they reflect market factors from which there is no way to disaggregate successful local authority interventions unless these are monitored independently which the Empty Homes Network strongly encourages all local authorities to do.
