1,000 homes left empty for six months or more

ALMOST 1,000 homes in Rochdale have been empty for six months or longer, new figures reveal.

According to government statistics it means one in 101 properties in the borough unoccupied higher than the national average.

Across the whole of Greater Manchester it is almost 10 times as high, with 11,150 homes lying empty.

Rochdale was someway behind still Bury however, which with one in every 79 homes standing empty - amounting to 1,050 at the end of 2016 has the worst problem. Oldham and Bolton also had particularly high rates of vacant housing, with 1,189 and 1,525 homes remaining vacant in each area respectively.

There was less of a problem in Manchester, where 1,365 properties were unoccupied for more than half a year, or one in every 162 homes.

Across England there were more than 200,000 homes that were empty long-term at the end of 2016 - or one in every 119 properties in the country.

John Ryan of Shelter Manchester said: “Nobody wants to see homes left empty whilst we’re in the midst of a housing crisis.

“But the sad fact is that even if every empty house in Greater Manchester was put back into use, it still wouldn’t solve our housing shortage. The real story here is that for decades we simply haven’t built enough homes, meaning thousands of people are now trapped in expensive and unstable private renting.

“So as well as using their own powers, we’ll be urging the new mayor to demand direct action from the government to build decent homes that people on lower incomes can actually afford.”

Helen Williams, director of national campaigning charity, Empty Homes, said “With the latest Government data for England recording around 200,000 long-term empty homes that is homes empty over six months, there is still much to be done to ensure best use is made of existing homes, alongside building new homes – both should go hand-inhand to meet housing needs. There are neighbourhoods in Greater Manchester with concentrations of empty homes and our research suggests this is often linked to poor standard housing in parts of the private rented sector and found where residents tend to be on low incomes. The standard of housing and blight of empty homes in these neighbourhoods is just as much a part of the housing crisis as the extreme affordability gap in higher value areas.

“That is why we are urging the next Government to target funding at neighbourhoods with higher levels of empty homes.

“Such a programme could encourage community-based neighbourhood improvement approaches that see properties refurbished and address the wider linked issues that people living in these neighbourhoods face.”

Figures released last year showed that homeownership in the region fell from 72.4 per cent in April 2003 to 57.9pc in February 2016 - the most drastic decline in the UK.