Abandoned homes may be brought back to life in city

The authority has unveiled plans to use cash from capital receipts to provide loans to owners of empty properties to bring them back into residential use.

A dedicated “empty properties officer” will be appointed to lead the scheme, which will help the council meet its affordable housing target as it looks to make £22m of cuts over the next two years.

Only 108 affordable homes have been built in York in the first two quarters of this year despite an annual need of 790.

Coun Tracey Simpson-Laing, York’s cabinet member for housing, said: “While dealing with significant funding challenges we will continue to focus on affordable housing as a major issue for the city. We want to encourage and work with owners of privately-owned empty homes and owners of vacant property to bring them back into residential use, a dedicated empty properties officer will enable us to work more closely with such owners.”

The initiative will also tackle anti-social behaviour linked to vacant properties while generating additional new homes bonus money, which will be poured back into the scheme.

David Ireland, chief executive of the charity Empty Homes, said: “It’s fantastic to see projects like this start. Whilst house building may be at record low levels it is still possible to create more affordable homes by bring empty ones back into use.”

The Yorkshire Post revealed last month that local authorities across the region are falling woefully short of annual affordable home building targets, as stark new figures unveil the growing tension between council chiefs and developers.

An investigation into the state of the region’s housing market discovered the scant number of affordable homes being built is leaving a growing backlog of thousands of families stranded in overcrowded homes every year.

In North Yorkshire, where soaring house prices have placed it at the sharp end of the country’s affordable homes crisis, only 377 affordable dwellings have been built in the first six months of the last financial year despite an annual need of 2,808 over the next five years.