The familiar Communiites and Local Government website has now been replaced by the developing single portal for government, GOV.UK. DCLG and the Department for Transport are the first two departments to make the switch, on 15th November 2012. In the process,…
BBC breakfast time on the 14th November featured a Fresh Horizons scheme in Huddersfield, funded out of the government's £100million empty homes pot. The scheme aims to bring 65 homes back into use. The video is accessible from here. You can find out…
The Empty Homes Network has recently sent out a Freedome of Information Request to English housing authorities. This is the first time that the Network has done anything of this kind. The FOI requests will no doubt percolate their way down to many of our…
In an exclusive front page story, Inside Housing magazine reports that the government has admitted that the allocation of HMR Transition funding for the purposes of widespread demolitions was unlwaful and has therefore decided not to contest the judicial…
A letter written to local authorities at the end of July apparently indicates the government's intention to offer councils complete flexiblity over the level of discounts for empty homes and periods of time for which they could apply. The letter states:…
Justice Kenneth Parker has dismissed an appeal against a CPO where the appellant tried to claim that, because the dwelling would have fallen under an exception class for the purposes of an EDMO, it should not therefore by subjec to a CPO. The argument was…
The long awaited changes to the Empty Dwelling Management Order regime are now moving forward as the relevant Statutory Instrument is now before Pariament. The changes are due to come into effect on the 15th November 2012. The wording is identical to the…
We have submitted our consultation response regarding how Empty Homes Premium should be taken account of in the Council Tax Base figures. Although our worst fears about EHP affecting New Homes Bonus seem not to have been justified (according to advice…
We've put our draft consultation response on the exceptions to the Empty Homes Premium on the website here for download. For your convenience, the text will be added into the forum discussion already underway. The most controversial part of the draft is…
The first draft of our consultation response on the Empty Homes Premium has now been published (follow this link for latest version). To contribute, please use our discussion forums.
CLG has for the first time published figures showing the contribution made by reductions in the number of empty homes to New Homes Bonus. The release of the figures was accompanied by a statement from Don Foster, the Minister who has replaced Andrew Stunell.…
St Helens Council in conjunction with Merseyside police are among the first to implement this new Legislation. Just two days after the legislation was introduced, Neighbourhood Police Officers from St Helens, working with the council's Private Sector…
Over the last couple of years the government has been re-configuring its figures on empty homes as part of a wider review of housing statistics in particular. Between January and April 2012 the government consulted on future and recent changes to housing and…
The High Court has ordered a judicial review of the government's handling of the £35million transition fund that was designed to ease some of the issues associated with the abrupt ending of the Housing Market Renewal programme. The issue here is that…
