Hundreds of empty homes

Hundreds of houses and flats in Peterborough have been standing empty for at least half a year, official figures have shown.

Peterborough City Council reported 587 longterm vacant homes in October last year, which is roughly the same as the 2016 figure.

The data was published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and is based on council tax records.

The number of empty homes in Peterborough has been falling in the last few years and is down seven per cent since 2014.

The latest figures show that the vast majority of empty properties were privately owned. However, some of those left vacant were homes for social or affordable rent managed by the council or housing associations.

In Peterborough, there were three vacant properties owned by the council and 79 by housing associations, a figure which includes those that had been empty for less than six months.

A report from the Empty Homes Agency, a charity which campaigns for empty properties to be brought back into use, said: “The government has talked of the need to build 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s.

“We believe more could be done to generate that additional housing supply through homes that have sat empty over the long-term.”

The charity also said it was concernedthattheofficialstatistics might underestimate the scale of the problem.