Thousands of homes are empty in Kirklees

Mar 12 2010 by Barry Gibson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

He said: “The council works extremely hard with property owners to bring homes back into use.

“We facilitate the sale or management of properties. For example, we worked with Accent Regeneration to acquire and refurbish an empty property and bring it back into use on Woodhead Road in Lockwood and one in Leeds Road.

“In a small number of cases, when encouragement and support has not been successful, we have enforcement powers such as Empty Dwelling Management Orders and Compulsory Purchase Orders.”

Calderdale Council has drawn up an Empty Property Strategy to deal with the 3,310 vacant homes in the district.

Calderdale Cabinet member for the economy Clr Amanda Byrne said: “We need to ensure as much housing as possible is available. It is important that the owners of empty properties are aware of the range of help available to bring their properties back into use.

“Our strategy will help agencies and landlords to work together to reduce the number of empty homes across the borough.”

The reasons homes can remain empty include the death of the owner and possible low demand for properties in a given area.