'Enforcement to be used' to bring stop empty homes 'distress; in Telford

Telford and Wrekin Council says empty dwellings "cause distress" to areas in the town, and it is prepared to used powers to bring 375 properties back into use by 2026.

The authority said it has brought 117 empty properties back into use over the last two years.

Councillor Richard Overton, the council’s deputy leader and cabinet member for housing, enforcement and transport said: “Empty homes can become a real blight on our communities causing distress to neighbourhoods throughout the borough.

“Our starting point is always to work with property owners to support and enable them to bring properties back into use themselves or via a sale.

“There are many more properties across Telford and Wrekin which we’re currently addressing to bring them back into use and to make our neighbourhoods better and more attractive places to live.”

The council made the announcement during National Empty Homes Week 2023 this week. It adopted a strategy to tackle long-term empty properties in October 2021.

In the latest November 2022 data, numbers of long-term empty homes in Telford and Wrekin rose by one per cent year-on-year to 431.

However, at 0.53 per cent, the levels are significantly below those across the wider West Midlands region (which stand at 1.11 per cent) and also below the national average of 1.0 per cent.

Across the West Midlands, long-term empty homes numbers rose significantly in 2022 by 11 per cent to 28,642 long-term empty homes, while a further 12,888 were classed as vacant and furnished "second homes".

At national level, long-term empty homes numbers rose by 5 per cent, meaning they are now 11 per cent above pre-pandemic (2019) levels and have risen by 24 per cent since the end of the last National Empty Homes Programme in 2015.

If there’s an empty property in your neighbourhood that’s causing you concern which you’d like to report, you can do so by emailing empty.homes@telford.gov.uk