Skip over main navigation
  • Log in
  • Basket: (0 items)
Action on Empty Homes
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
Donate
Menu
  • About us
    • What we do
      • What we do
      • Our story
    • The empty homes challenge
      • Why empty homes matter
      • The solutions
      • FAQs
    • Meet the team
    • Contact us
      • Contact us
      • Media info
  • Knowledge Base
    • Current Projects
    • Empty Homes Data
    • Community Action Toolkit
    • Publications and Research
    • Consultancy
  • Take Action
    • What can you do?
  • Our impact
    • The difference we make
    • Case studies
  • Latest
    • Events
    • Blogs
    • News
  • Admin
    • Log in
  • Basket: (0 items)
  • Current Projects
  1. Take Action
  2. What can you do?

Current Projects

Action on Empty Homes researches and analyses the latest issues and data on the nuanced subject of empty homes and underutilisation. We do this to share learning and to effectively campaign for policy changes. 

Our current key projects are: 

Image showing empty, derelict room of a house

Critically examining emptiness and underutilsation

Action on Empty Homes publishes the most authoritative guide to empty homes data and analyses official data on emptiness and underutilisation. See our Facts and figures page for the numbers in your area - in almost a hundred local council areas at least one home in every 50 is out of use long-term and adding all vacants and second homes reveals that around 1 home in every 25 in England has nobody living in it. Around a million homes without residents.

 

Image shows hands coming together to touchCommunity-led Empty Homes Retrofit Feasability

This project funded by Esmee Fairbairn Foundation is a one-year feasibility study to test and evaluate the viability of community-led Retrofit Empty Homes Action Partnerships (REHAPs). Each REHAP would fully retrofit empty homes as they are renovated, deliver green work-experience skills and training and build local supply chains, which together will help drive action on climate change at the local level.

We’ll work alongside networks of partners, including community groups, local authorities, training institutions, architects, potential funders and the building trade, to explore and negotiate potential models for fully retrofitting empty homes. We know one-size won’t fit all. Through collaborations, focus groups and workshops, we’ll ‘walk through’ and test each workstream to find a range of project delivery options. The feasibility study will run in three local authority areas.

The project builds on our Community Action on Empty Homes Toolkit, a resource for local authorities and community groups which supports community-led approaches to bringing empty homes into use as affordable housing for local people. It is also informed by our partnerships with the Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN), Scottish Empty Homes Partnership and Welsh School of Architecture on our Retrofit Call to Action launched at the COP26 Fringe.

 

Images shows street in city lit up at duskHousing to meet Londoners needs, not investors

Our current project on London's housing crisis aims to build a coalition for change, examining communities' development priorities. This builds on the insights of our London wealth investment in housing project about the hundred thousand plus London homes that aren't housing anyone. Our starting point was to look at London properties bought by investors, who leave them empty to store wealth or to sell-on at a profit. We then looked at other categories of empty housing and how Airbnb has sucked homes out of residential supply.  

The project is supported by Trust for London and aims to start a public conversation about how wealth investment distorts London housing delivery, creating a housing market that does not meet Londoners' housing needs. The project's publications 'Pretty Vacant' (2020) and 'Nobody's Home' (2021) have identified the role of London's dominant development model in building emptiness and locking Londoners out of access to decent affordable housing. This project running to 2024 aims to build a coalition for change

 

Partnerships and coalitions for change

The Campaign Against Empty Homes 

The Campaign Against Empty Homes is a broad coalition which grew out of our campaign against a development model which literally builds empty homes - in other words 'the wrong housing' to meet local needs. It focuses on long-term empty homes, buy to leave empty wealth investments, the growth of short-lets and developments that are building unaffordable housing as 100,000 homeless families remain stuck in insecure and often overcrowded Temporary Accommodation and 1.2million are on the social housing waiting list.

From the green belt to the greenfields and from city centres to coastal resorts, we desperately need to start building homes to meet local housing needs, not investment opportunities for Airbnb landlords and so-called 'second home' owners.

 

The Better Planning Coalition

We are an active member of the Better Planning Coalition a broad coalition of groups working together to try and ensure that the Government's Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill delivers for people, nature and climate. The Bill, which is now progressing through parliament, includes new proposals for increased taxation on second homes and empty homes. The current Bill also proposes a raft of changes to planning and replaces earlier proposals for radical Planning Reform, dropped after widespread opposition.

 

Global Empty Homes Network

We have also collaborated with colleagues in Australia ans the United States to launch a Global Empty Homes Network.

If you want to financially support or get involved in any of these projects then please get in touch

Published: 18th April, 2019

Updated: 28th March, 2023

Author: Chris Bailey

Share this page
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Latest

  • Wales follows Scotland to create National Empty Homes Programme as England’s empties continue to pile up

    Wales follows Scotland to create National Empty Homes Programme as England’s empties continue to pile up

    Jack Portman looks at Wales new National Empty Homes Programme and asks whether the rest of the UK is leaving England behind on housing policy, as vacancy levels in England continue to rise amidst an intense housing crisis.

  • Empty Homes Week 2023 sees council's take action to bring homes back to use

    Empty Homes Week 2023 sees council's take action to bring homes back to use

    Across England hundreds of local authorities are taking action and we round up some examples of their work - but with 1 million homes without residents and 250,000 long-term empty and not covered by a legitimate exemption, Government needs to restart a national empty homes programme, to create much-needed 'homes from empty homes'.

  • National Empty Homes Week 2023 sees call for action on One Million homes nobody lives in

    National Empty Homes Week 2023 sees call for action on One Million homes nobody lives in

    TODAY there are over 1 million homes in England with no residents. New powers and investment are needed. Action should start with long-term empties and unused second homes

  • Wales follows Scotland to create National Empty Homes Programme as England’s empties continue to pile up

    Wales follows Scotland to create National Empty Homes Programme as England’s empties continue to pile up

    Jack Portman looks at Wales new National Empty Homes Programme and asks whether the rest of the UK is leaving England behind on housing policy, as vacancy levels in England continue to rise amidst an intense housing crisis.

Most read

  • How do I find the owner of an abandoned property?

    Action on Empty Homes does not have the capacity to assist individuals or property developers in locating the owners of individual empty properties, but we can access expert advice for you and there are a number of ways in which the owner may be located, these are listed here:

  • Empty Homes Data

    Empty Homes Data

    Government publish data on vacant dwellings for each local authority and for England as a whole. Action on Empty Homes publishes the most authoritative guide to empty homes data and each year we analyse the official data on long-term empty homes, producing the only comprehensive analysis of this data.

  • In Empty Homes Week 2022 we call for action and investment

    In Empty Homes Week 2022 we call for action and investment

    In Empty Homes Week 2022 we explain the areas of policy that fail our homeless and families in need of genuinely affordable housing. Empty homes have two roles in this they can house the homeless and they can show us where housing policy fails by building 'The Wrong Housing' to end the Housing Crisis

  • Massive 20% rise in empty homes up over 42,000 to 268,385 while 100,000 families are stuck in Temporary Accommodation

    Massive 20% rise in empty homes up over 42,000 to 268,385 while 100,000 families are stuck in Temporary Accommodation

    Government data released today shows a massive year on year rise of over 42,000 to a total of 268,385 long-term empty homes in England, as nearly 100,000 families languish in temporary accommodation. This is the biggest rise since current records began.

  • Our Pretty Vacant Manchester report asks is Manchester Building 'The Wrong Housing'

    Our Pretty Vacant Manchester report asks is Manchester Building 'The Wrong Housing'

    Action on Empty Homes new report supported by the Evan Cornish Foundation reports on work to examine vacancy levels and housing policy in Manchester and asks questions about the City's 'hidden empties', its persistently high level of so-called 'second homes' and the impact of Airbnb on access to housing.

  • Ask your local candidates to Sign up to the Campaign Against Empty Homes Local Election Manifesto

    Ask your local candidates to Sign up to the Campaign Against Empty Homes Local Election Manifesto

    The Campaign Against Empty Homes is supported by Action on Empty Homes The Big Issue Disabled People Against Cuts Fuel Poverty Action The Green Party Homes for All Labour Homelessness Campaign London Renters’ Rights Peace & Justice Project Radical Housing Network Social Housing Action Campaign Southwark Defend Council Housing Streets Kitchen Street Storage Unite Community London and South East Unite the Union London and Eastern Region

  • Future proofing: Use Empty Homes Week 2022 to explore retrofitting while renovating

    Future proofing: Use Empty Homes Week 2022 to explore retrofitting while renovating

    Empty Homes Week 2022 takes place from Monday February 28th to Sunday March 6th. Brighid Carey, AEH Consultancy and Projects Manager says we should all use the focus it offers to explore retrofitting while renovating and bringing empty homes back into use

  • Pretty Vacant: Our latest report on London's housing crisis

    Pretty Vacant: Our latest report on London's housing crisis

    New report reveals why the next 500 high rise towers won’t end London’s housing crisis and the Government action needed.

  • Global Empty Homes Network Launches in UK, USA and Australia with call for worldwide housing protections during Covid Crisis

    Global Empty Homes Network Launches in UK, USA and Australia with call for worldwide housing protections during Covid Crisis

    Action on Empty Homes, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), and Prosper Australia, announce launch of the Global Empty Homes Network (GEHN). The three organizations, based in the UK, the US, and Australia will focus particularly on the mismatch between growing empty homes numbers and increasing housing need.

  • News coverage highlights second homes numbers rising as thousands flip to business rates

    News coverage highlights second homes numbers rising as thousands flip to business rates

    Recent media coverage focused on so-called 'second homes' flipping to business rates to avoid paying council tax and how this adds to local housing pressures as homes disappear from residential supply

Sign up for our newsletter

Please enter your first name
Please enter your last name
Please enter your email address Please enter a valid email address (e.g. [email protected])

Find us

Registered Office
200A Pentonville Road
Kings Cross
London
N1 9JP


[email protected]

Links

  • Sitemap
  • Accessibility
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Registered in England as a charitable and Community Benefit Society Number 27697R

Manage Cookie Preferences