Published

A five year plan to reduce the number of empty homes in the area was approved at today’s Executive.

The plan sets out how empty properties will be brought back into residential use across the Falkirk Council area during 2014-2019 to increase the supply of affordable housing locally.

Since April, sixty two properties have been brought back into use thanks to a targeted approach to work with owners of empty homes. This has also resulted in an additional £32k being paid in council tax.

Councillor Gerry Goldie, Spokesperson for Housing said: “There is a national shortage of properties available to rent across Scotland. While we are trying to address this through our house building and buy back programmes, we are also working with private owners of empty properties.

“Empty homes can have a negative impact in local communities encouraging anti social behaviour and are also at risk of squatting.

“There can be around 1,000 empty properties at any one time across the Falkirk Council area and we hope that this figure will greatly reduce over the next five years.”

The newly formed team provides a coordinated approach, provides information to owners of empty properties and has:

  • Created an accurate empty homes database
  • Researched a range of options – renting, selling, renovating
  • Produced a plain English leaflet for owners of empty properties
  • Sent an empty home survey to owners
  • An empty homes page on council’s website
  • Negotiated discounts with local businesses for empty property owners to reduce the cost of renovation work

There are a number of options available to bring empty homes back into use including the Matchmaker Scheme which matches up owners and  buyers find the right home, 45 properties have been advertised using this scheme.