  Britain's Empty Homes
BBC 1 - 4th January - 29th January 2010, 11.00 - 11.30am
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 Programme 20 : For the final programme of the series, we stay with Paul Palmer in central London. The first case he takes us to is the result of an e-mail message he has had in the office. It turns out to be a 4 storey house divided into 10 flats, many of which certainly look empty. The basement has a broken window and there are signs that somebody is living in the garden. He decides that the owners need to tracked down urgently as there is a risk that others could get into the property through the basement and do damage. This would put back the process of getting the property back into use. In another case, Paul meets the owner of a house where the owner has been given a grant from the Council to help renovation, providing 3 flats. The work has been overseen by the Council and a condition of the grant is that it will be occupied by tenants from the Council's housing waiting list. |
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 Programme 19 :The final Thursday programme in the series is once again with Empty Property Officer Paul Palmer in Westminster. He has been called out by neighbours of a house near Hyde Park, which is very shabby and is smelling of vermin. Having talked to neighbours, he follows the trail which seems to lead to two other large empty houses nearby. His second case today also involves property where an individual owner has several houses in the same area worth millions of pounds, but which are being left empty. Paul has a meeting with the owner, and starts the process of working with the owner to get the houses back into use.
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 Programme 18 : Wednesday’s programme travels to Devon again to see Empty Property Officer Sue Haigh at work around Exeter. Sue has a difficult case with a ground floor flat where the owner was supposed to start renovation work two years ago, but little progress has been made. The gardens are overgrown and are being used for fly-tipping, and neighbours are very concerned. In many cases owners will work in co-operation with the Council to get a home back into use. But here, reluctantly, Sue is going to have to consider taking formal enforcement action. By contrast, in another case, Sue has arranged for the Council to give a renovation grant to get a house ready for re-use, in return for the property being available to a family from the Council's housing waiting list. The owners are delighted to be able to get a solution.
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 Programme 17 :The final Tuesday programme in the series returns to the heart of London and Empty Property Officer Paul Palmer's work in Westminster, where there are up to 3,000 empty properties. His first visit is to a Mayfair house which is 250 years old and Listed Grade II. The house has deteriorated having been empty for 7 years whilst being bought and sold over and again by investors who were only interested in the capital gain and have not wanted to use the house for living in or renting out. At last the property has been bought by an owner who plans to restore it for use. The second case which Paul shows is a residential block in Soho where previous unlawful use as offices has been terminated by the Council's intervention, and the property has just been bought by a local housing association which will refurbish the flats for family social housing.
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 Programme 16 : On the last Monday of the series, we rejoin Dave Carter at work in the London Borough of Enfield where he has an active caseload of 200 properties. The first property is a terraced house which neighbours have reported as empty for a year. The front garden is badly overgrown and there are piles of letters inside; Dave will need to trace who the owner is. Later in the programme, Dave visits one of his long term cases - a chalet bungalow had been empty for 5 years before the Council took it over by Compulory Purchase. The new owner has been working to restore it to a 9 month schedule set by Dave, and there are only 2 months left. Fortunately progress has been good, and the house is well on track to being back in use as the home of the new owner.
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 Programme 15. On Friday once again the programme visits Matthew Smith in Birmingham where his Empty Property Team has 2000 cases on the go. The City Council approach to getting empty and abandoned property back into use is: "Find It, Fix It, Fill It". In the programme Matthew is at the early stages of finding two houses which have been left empty and in a bad state. By looking for clues at the house, he finds that one property is probably owned by someone he already knows from other empty property cases he has had in the area. In the second case, he finds a house where rubbish is piled up in the front garden, and the front door is open. As this poses a real safety threat, he has to serve a Notice on the property that if the owner takes no action within 48 hours, the Council will intervene to secure the property. After that he will try to work with the owner to get the house back into use. |
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 Programme 14. On Thursday we rejoin Su Li in Amber Valley, Derbyshire. Su has been in her job as Empty Property Officer for 4 years and loves the work. In the last year she has been able to bring 125 empty homes back into use for housing in her area. In the programme she does a final visit to a house which had been empty for 14 years before the current owner bought it 2 years ago and has now lovingly restored the house, with the help of a small renovation grant from the Council. Later in the programme Su makes a first visit to a house which looks empty although there are signs that some building work might have taken place. With a bit of help from talking to neighbours she aims to establish if there really is a plan for renovation or whether she might have to take enforcement action.
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 Programme 13. On Wednesday we rejoin Empty Property Officer Liz Daykin in South Derbyshire, who covers an area of 100 square miles and has 900 empty properties on her list. In the programme, Liz does a progress visit to check how restoration works are getting on compared to the schedule of works which she had agreed with the owner. In another case she meets an owner who has just completed renovating a formerly abandoned house which is now ready for renting by a family in need of housing who have been on the Council's waiting list. In a third, and very different case, she meets a developer on site at at bungalow they bought three years ago which has been left empty and is falling into a bad state. The developer has submitted proposals to demolish the building and build a new three storey house on the plot, but Liz is concerned that this should not mean the home is left to deteriorate further for many more years without any start on building. |
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 Programme 12. Tuesday's programme joins Paul Palmer again in the heart of London. First he visits a case nearing completion where empty rooms in a Soho street are being returned to housing use after intervention by Westminster City Council. The flats are ready to be viewed by prospective tenants from the Council's housing waiting list. His second case today is very different - two adjoining Mayfair embassies had been left empty for many years by their overseas government owners. The interiors are full of historic architectural features, and Paul is visiting to check the condition of the properties as squatters have taken them over. He finds the squatters have cleaned up the intereior and are using it as an artists studio and gallery. The policy of the squatters is only to occupy property that has been empty long-term. However, eviction proceedings are are in hand and Paul's concern is that when the properties are empty again after the squatters, he will need to ensure the owners get on with repair work to get them properly reoccupied and used again. |
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 Programme 11 : Monday’s programme travels to Devon and meets Exeter's Empty Property Officer Sue Haigh. Sue covers the City of Exeter as well as some of Devon's other areas giving her a total "patch" of 700 square miles. The first case is in central Exeter where Environmental Health colleagues have reported an overgrown terraced house where rubbish has accumulated in the front garden. Sue starts the process by visiting the site to see for herself whether the house is unoccupied. Later in the programme Sue shows us an empty house which they became aware of 4 years ago, but have now located the owner. The Council has agreed to give a building renovation grant to the owner in return for taking on a tenant from the Council's waiting list when the works are done. In these cases, the Council sends in an approved building contractor to do the works and oversees the renovation process to ensure the work is done adequately. The end result is a family being able to move into an affordable home in Exeter, and one less empty house!
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 Programme 10 : In Friday's programme we rejoin Dave Carter, Empty Property Officer for Enfield - where there are over 1,000 long term empty properties across the Borough. This time he is concentrating on a long running case where a house has been empty for 17 years. The owner explains that he bought the house with the intention of renovating it and occupying it, but delays and problems have held him back.... Dave had concerns that the house was never going to be finished so he gave the owner a 4 week deadline to complete the work otherwise the Council would compulsorily buy the property. At the end of the deadline, work had certainly progressed, but it was still not finished. Dave was reluctant to resort to Compulsory Purchase and hoped the threat of it would encourage the owner to speed up. A further detailed schedule of works was issued with a 3 month deadline.
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 Programme 9 : Thursday's programme introduces Su Li, the Empty Property Officer of Amber Valley Council in Derbyshire. She has around 1,000 empty properties on her list and two are visited in the programme. The first is a very derelict terraced house which has been empty for 24 years. The owner of the adjoining house is interested in buying it to get it restored, so that his own property is no longer blighted. The owner was thought to live aborad, and was traced by the neighbours through the internet. Sue has acted as intermediary and a sale has now been achieved. The second case is a 4 bedroom detached house where the owner died some years ago, and redevelopment proposals foundered. The property is now very overgrown, and rubbish is being dumped on the site. For difficult properties, sale by auction is often the best way to achieve a result and this is what Sue lines up for the owners.
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 Programme 8 : On Wednesday we rejoin Dave Carter at work in the London Borough of Enfield - he has an active caseload of 200 properties across Enfield. He visits an empty house where rubbish has piled up in the yard and a vermin / pest problem is feared.. Dave meets a neighbour who is worried about the possible criminal activity which may be attracted as the house becomes more run down. The second case he visits is the result of a years work by Dave. A terraced house has been in the same family for generations, but fell into decline after being left empty for 4 years. The Council has given a grant to get the house refurbished, and in return it will be rented out to a family on the Council's housing waiting list.
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 Programme 7 :Tuesday’s programme returns to the heart of London and Empty Property Officer Paul Palmer's work in Westminster. This time he is lookiing into mews houses - the first case is in Mayfair where a block of 4 large houses has been empty for 10 years. A developer bought them 12 years ago and after repeatedly stopping and starting works, they are are now in a sorry state behind scaffolding, with no roof and rubbish accumulating. Paul is having to pursue Compulsory Purchase powers in order to save the properties for re-use. His other mews case is in Belgravia where he finds three adjacent houses empty. He checks Land Registry records and the Planning registers to identify the owner in order start discussions about what can be done to get them back into use. In both these cases local residents and neighbours called for action from the Council's Empty Property Officer.
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 Programme 6 : On Monday we join Dave Carter at work in the London Borough of Enfield. He has an active caseload of 200 properties across Enfield. The first property is an empty lock-keeper's cottage which was sold to a developer 12 months ago but has remained empty ever since and is now being vandalised. Dave meets the owner who explains that as the building is listed and in a Conservation Area it has taken a while to get plans for conversion to 3 units sorted out. Later in the programme, Dave visits one of his long term cases - an empty terraced house - where the owners are a couple who have split up and are out of touch. After being empty for 15 years, Dave has had to serve a Notice that the Council will make a Compulsory Purchase Order to get the property repaired and back into use. However he is hopeful that a simpler solution can be secured as a neighbour is interested in buying the property.
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 Programme 5 : In today’s programme Jules returns to Birmingam to catch up with Empty Property Officer Matthew Smith who gets 70 empty properties a month added to his list to investigate. He pays a visit to an eyesore house in a quiet street where after long and fruitless efforts to trace the owner to discuss what might be done , the Council has decided it must serve an Enforcement Notice on the owner. Where the owner is not known or refuses all approaches of help, the Council might have to resort to Compulsory Purchase of the property and do the repair work itself to get the house back into use again. In another case, Matthew is working with the Police Crime Prevention Officer and starts the process of tracing the owner through the Land Registry. Also included is an example of the Landmark Trust's rescuing of historic buildings.
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Programme 2 : South Derbyshire Council’s Liz Daykin shows how she can help put owners of empty property in touch with people who want to buy them. Their great 
