Empty homes or empty promises?
A short time ago I blogged about Cornwall Council's promise to use its powers of compulsory purchase to help deal with some of the county's 4,000 empty homes. So I was puzzled to find no mention of this exciting new policy in the draft budget, due to be presented to the full council next month. Here's the answer:
"There is no specific sum allocated for funding the compulsory purchase of homes - it is part of our overall strategy for bringing empty homes back into use and provide more affordable housing. Compulsory purchase would be the last resort and the funding for doing this would come from the £1.9m new homes bonus."Cornwall's councils have had powers of compulsory purchase for many years - and have never, ever, used them. I've made a note to ask again, in 12 months, to find out how many of those 4,000 empty homes have been brought back into use.
I'm BBC Radio Devon’s Graham Smith, blogging on news, views and some fresh insights into West Country life, particularly the way government works locally and nationally.
Comment number 1.
At 06:52 29th Oct 2011, backofanenvelope wrote:I read somewhere that there are 9000 empty dwellings in Cornwall. Presumably, 5000 of them are owned by the national and local government. Perhaps they should concentrate on them before stealing other people's property.
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Comment number 2.
At 06:44 31st Oct 2011, Jude Robinson wrote:The Lib Dem administration at Cornwall County Counil had money from the Labour government a few years back to develop their empty homes strategy - as they were so bad at it. I wonder where that went?
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