Our demonstration projects

Action on Empty Homes has a major project to spread community-based regeneration in areas with high levels of empty homes.

We are following six demonstration projects where community-based organisations are bringing empty homes into use.

The six demonstration projects are:

Cultures CIC working in Stockton on Tees - see more here
East Midlands CLH working in the Sincil Bank area of Lincoln - see more here
Giroscope Ltd working in Kingston upon Hull - see more here
Groundwork Greater Manchester working in Rochdale - see more here
Methodist Action North West working in Darwen, Lancashire - see more here
North Ormesby CLT working in Middlesbrough - see more here

We want to understand what works, as well as the challenges they face.

We aim to share their experiences, to encourage other organisations and areas to look at how community-based regeneration could work in their neighbourhoods.

You can read or download both the initial report on this project and the concluding report 'Community Action on Empty Homes' published on May 2nd 2019. This practical report includes recommendations and reviews learning from the full three-year research project, during which we followed the work of the six case study projects. Just click the document images below to view and download the reports as pdfs:

Film from HuffPost:

For an alternative look at how community-led organisations can bring empty homes back to use, with benefits for the whole community, see this recent HuffPost film featuring the great work of Canopy Housing in Leeds, creating homes from empty homes. The film also features a look at the wider picture from Action on Empty Homes, which covers the issues which unite empty homes in high and lower value markets around the country: https://bit.ly/2RHCWGY

Latest

National Empty Homes Week 2019 Sept 23rd - 29th

This year the housing crisis has intensified as long-term empty homes numbers rose by nearly 11,000 to over 216,000 focusing public attention on the problem
Great Places Commission Report seeks investment and end to auction disposals of Social Homes

National Housing Federation's eagerly-anticipated report recommends how we create great places to live. Topping list are investment, national Landlords register, community assets and an end to auction sell-offs of social homes.
Why 'affordable' homes in Derby are standing empty

Homes stand empty after housing associations reject new build homes that do not meet social housing space standards
Using empty homes to regenerate communities - our report looks at how

Brighid Carey shows how affordable housing can be delivered from empty homes through collaboration with communities

Empty Homes Week 2019

Empty Homes Week 2019 will take place from the 23rd September 2019 until the 29th September 2019. In 2018 over 100 councils took part in National Empty Homes Week. Contact your council for local events and information.
Why empty homes matter

There are over 216,000 homes long-term empty when England needs over 300,000 additional homes each year. Bringing long-term empty homes back into use will also help rebuild neighbourhoods and make environmental sense.
National Empty Homes Week 2019 Sept 23rd - 29th

This year the housing crisis has intensified as long-term empty homes numbers rose by nearly 11,000 to over 216,000 focusing public attention on the problem
Current Projects

We are developing a toolkit for community-led empty homes projects and working on tackling wealth investor ‘buy to leave’ in London. We are also building a national coalition to call for government investment in empty homes.
Meet the team

Our staff team and Board of Trustees work closely together to ensure that Action on Empty Homes campaigns for change in the most effective way.
What we do

Action on Empty Homes campaigns for empty homes to be brought into use for people in housing need. We raise awareness, campaign for policy change, provide advice and research and develop ideas to help bring empty homes into use
Support Action on Empty Homes

We rely on support from individuals and grant funders. Want to support us? Then click the donate box at the top of the page.
Accessibility
Publications and Research

We produce four types of publications: Campaign publications advocating policy responses to end the waste of empty homes Reports on active programmes to bring empty homes into use Research and analysis of the empty homes issue. Our annual Empty Homes England report, the only comprehensive annual analysis of official data
Facts and figures

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.