Cllr David Thomas: We must tackle Bay's empty homes crisis

Ultimately, everyone needs a home, and we have many residents struggling to afford a home while others live in temporary accommodation and there is a risk this crisis will impact generations to come. At this moment in time, Torbay has nearly 1,700 households registered with Devon Home Choice, (the council’s social housing register) all in need of a permanent home. 

One of the areas we are focussing on is, how we can turn empty properties into homes. This not only helps address the housing crisis but is also better for the environment as it reduces the number of green spaces we’d need to build on. Amazingly and on average, there are 1,164 empty properties in Torbay that have been empty for more than six months. But it’s the 250 homes that have been empty for more than two years that we are focussing more resources on and trying to understand the reasons why they have been empty for so long.

Earlier this year we carried out two surveys in this area - Empty Homes and Housing Strategy. This showed us that 94 per cent of those that responded want us to do more as a council to tackle the blight of long-term empty homes.

We need to do more, and it is clear that we will need a ‘Carrot and stick’ approach to this. The carrot is that we will explore funding streams to potentially enable us to provide loans to help long term empty property owners bring them back into use, though we will need to do some more work around this before we can commit to it.

Whilst we are now also developing a private rented and social sector improvement plan to tackle disrepair and poor housing conditions. This will also proactively target non-compliant landlords, and take appropriate action where standards are not being met – this is the stick part.

So what can you do to help? If you are aware of an empty home, you can report this on our website (www.torbay.gov.uk/report-an-empty-home) or call the team on 01803 208025. If you also own an empty home and need to support to bring it up to standard, please contact the same team.

You may have seen that at the end of August we had to take the extraordinary measures to keep you safe after the condition of the East Tower at Oldway become more dangerous. Part of this meant needing to close the road and pavement right behind the tower on Oldway Road.

Specialist contractors have deconstructed the top level of the East Tower’s brick by brick to ensure the remaining part of the tower was preserved.

Following this work I am pleased to say now that after the careful removal of the affected part that one lane on Oldway Road and the pavement are now open.

We know that Oldway is an important much-loved community asset and the recent ‘Developing a Resilient Future for Oldway’ consultation showed strong support for the emerging vision and proposals, which include restoring Oldway Mansion and gardens and preserving its history and heritage. We will be considering the recommendations of the consultation report in our November Cabinet meeting, which you can watch live through our You Tube channel, of course, the ongoing issue will be how do we fund such a massive project together with the other regeneration schemes that have started and now need extra monies to get completed?

Finally, if you are regular user of either Paignton or Preston Sea Fronts, the final consultation is taking place of the designs before the planning application for the scheme is submitted at the end of this month. You can see the latest plans through a great visual fly through as well see the ideas for the materials, furniture, trees and planting that could be used. To view these fly throughs and to take part in the consultation please visit www.torbay.gov.uk/consultations