Want to fix the housing crisis? Tell empty home owners 'use it or lose it'

In his landmark speech last week, he pledged to create the most ambitious council house-building programme since the post-war period.

Our future government would adopt a ‘Housing First’ philosophy so that everyone has a good home.

I am all for a philosophy that recognises a decent home is not a luxury - good housing underpins health, education, family stability, employment and community.

But if Britain is serious about a Housing First agenda, should bringing empty homes back into use not be their top priority before ploughing more money into new-builds?

England currently has more than 300,000 homes that have been empty for more than a year - the highest figure in over a decade - alongside more than one million properties not currently in permanent residential use.

And, these are not theoretical homes that require years of planning battles, lengthy appeals, expensive infrastructure projects or debates over Green Belt development.

Far from it.

The foundations are already there and in many cases, the roof simply needs repairing or the inside needs a bit of a spruce.

We’re in the midst of a housing crisis while thousands of perfectly good homes sit behind boarded-up windows.

Probate can be complex as ill health intervenes, families fragment and renovation costs rise. But time marches on, while thousands have no place to call home.

There comes a point when we need to ask a tougher question - how long should we wait to take action?

If a detached house is empty in the middle of nowhere, causing harm to nobody, perhaps that is a matter for the owner.

Yet across the nation’s towns and cities, abandoned properties have become a nuisance to neighbourhoods, attracting vermin, squatters and vandals. It’s time to take a different approach. Homeowners must be given a clearer message about their property: Use it, or lose it.

The government could do far more to encourage absent owners to take action through grants, tax incentives and low-interest refurbishment loans.

After five years of long-term vacancy, councils should have stronger powers to compel a sale where all reasonable efforts to engage the owners have failed.

And there’s an environmental benefit too.

Reusing existing homes is substantially better for the climate than demolishing and rebuilding.

And, so much for net zero. Studies suggest the embodied carbon associated with constructing a new building can be twice that of a deep retrofit, making refurbishment one of the most environmentally sensible housing policies available.

Housing should not be treated as merely an investment opportunity. Policymakers, developers and investors must recognise that homes fulfil a basic social need and should be available and affordable for the people who need them.

There can be no doubt the housing crisis is real - the UK desperately needs new homes.

There were 169,050 children living in temporary accommodation in England at the start of 2025, the highest number on record.

But we also need a national mission to rescue the homes we already have.

All too often, housing policy reverts to one singular and predictable mission - build more homes. Yet alongside every new estate approved, there are rows of terraced houses left neglected, family homes left boarded up, declining into decay.

Andy Burnham is right that a good home is the essential foundation on which people build their lives.

I believe a truly ambitious Housing First programme should begin by ensuring that the hundreds of thousands of homes we have already built are brought back to life.

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Simon Taylor is the Founder of Empty Property Hunters.

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