EMPTY AND LOW USE HOMES IN SHEFFIELD�

Dr. Yahya Aydin

(Academic Visitor in Urban Studies and Planning at the University of Sheffield and Assoc. Prof. in the Department of Sociology at Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University, Ankara, Turkey)

Prof. Rowland Atkinson

(Professor in Urban Studies and Planning at the University of Sheffield)

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People, Space and Belonging

PPP Conference 2024, 12 June 2024, Sheffield Hallam University

Outline

• Empty Home and England
• Housing Market of Sheffield
• Method
• Main Findings
• Conclusion

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Report of English Housing Survey, 2022-2023

• Owner occupation largest tenure group in England (65% of households), social rented sector smallest (16%), private rented sector (19%) since 2013-14.
• In 2022, there were 1.1 million vacant dwellings, making up 5% of dwellings in England. This is a similar proportion to the last year of (pre COVID-19) data collection in 2019, also at 1.1 million and 5%.

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TITLE, Action on Empty Home (2023) Report�

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In 2022, “Less Than 6 Months Empty: 222,101

Long Term Empty: 256,827, Empty Homes Premium: 72,341, Second Homes: 256,913

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Unoccupied exemptions: 203,746, Total: 1,011,928 

Percent (%) of total dwellings (England): 4.01” (Local Government Association, 2023)

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“Numbers of long-term empty homes rose yet again in 2023 by 12,556 (or 5%) to 261,189. Long-term empties are now at their highest level since 2011 (excepting 2020's pandemic-related data). This data shows empties are over 30% higher than when the last National Empty Homes Programme ended in 2015” (DLUHC 8 Nov 2023)

Long Term Empty Homes in England from 2012-2022 (Sources: DLUHC Council Taxbase statistics).

Reasons of Emptines

“Dwellings may be empty for a number of reasons: they are undergoing refurbishment; they are no longer fit for human habitation and are therefore derelict; groups of dwellings might be deliberately kept empty in preparation for redevelopment; second homes may be seasonally vacant if they are used as holiday accommodation” (Wyatt, 2008: 1172).

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• Investment / buy to leave
• Second homes or holiday homes, Airbnbs
• Urban decline
• Inheritence

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The Case of Sheffield

• Not like London or Manchester or other tourist cities, especially in the south of England.
• Do Empty or Low Use Homes still matter?
• “Sheffield's more mirroring the classic part of the problem, the lack of affordable housing for low-income people. And in terms of the level of long-term empty homes, it's, again, it's mirroring the national problem. Probably a lack of policy to get them back into use” (p.18-National Housing Action Organisation-2)

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Empty or Low Use of Homes in Sheffield

Profile of Participants

• Semi-structured interviews.
• Sheffield City Council Housing and Finance Committee
• Meeting Attendances and Observation.

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Empty Home Officers

“The other policy direction is the policy of employing someone in the council to work on empty homes. It's a voluntary thing from the council. We don't have to do that, but it's the direction that we want to do to spend some time. And this isn't so much a policy as a practice issue. This is someone to just do work in practice to look for landlords who've got homes that are standing empty, talk to them, see how we can help them, and see if they can get the homes shifted on so they become occupied.”

(P21- SCC-Housing Committee Member).

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Second Homes and Sheffield

“The government have changed the regulations, legislation, so that we can now charge council tax if we choose to on people's homes if they've been, when they have been emptied more than a year and for under two years. So previously we didn't charge. It wasn't considered, anything over two years was considered an empty property if it was furnished.” (P9-SCC-Finance Committee Member)

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“Two years is quite a long time, so again, that's contributed to the level of vacancy. There's some new legislation this year that's now just here, which we've been recommending for quite a long time. So that may have some impact, although we don't think ultimately just increasing taxation in a country where taxation on housing is quite low anyway. I think it's a good enough tool to bring housing to use. Not least, but least. Often the positive incentives and always negative ones.” (P18-National Housing Action Organisation-2)

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Second Homes and Sheffield

“If there are a million empty homes across the country, that rising tax might bring 5% of them back into use, what about the other 95%? You know what I said, a lot of people don't need the money, or they're not bothered about the money. Is an extra £100 a month council tax going to make a difference? Probably not. I'd be interested to see what happens over the next year or two with the changing premiums. I'd like to see government impose something like they do in Brussels, where they increase the tax but they also fine people. The key word is fine, not tax. A tax is something that everyone pays, but a fine is because of your action or inaction, and therefore we'd like to see fines imposed, so something along those lines.”

(P20-National Housing Action Organisation-3)

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Short Term Let / Airbnb and Sheffield

“In a lot of buildings, leases, they say that you cannot do it within the building, so that is something we get a lot, we get a lot of people ringing up and asking, can we do it as an Airbnb, but it is within the building lease, so it is illegal, you cannot do it.” (P11-National Estate Agency)

“Obviously we're under the same umbrella of accommodations but we offer a service whereas Airbnb offers shelter.” (P14-National Hotel)

“Airbnb has a massive impact on hotels, especially from a pricing perspective. They offer lower-priced accommodations with fewer responsibilities, such as taxes and staff. Our location is in the city centre, and there are approximately 100 Airbnb properties in close proximity. While business people typically prefer to stay in hotels, some have recently opted for Airbnb instead. This increased competition is affecting our business.” (P16-Local Hotel)

“We are concerned about the tourist tax rate as a local hotel in Sheffield. It has started in Manchester and may soon be introduced in Sheffield. This means that £1 will be paid to the council from each booking.” (P16-Local Hotel).

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Short Term Let / Airbnb and Sheffield

R: Nothing to do with them. So, we don't tend to look at Airbnbs, because they're properties that are being used. You know, it's not illegal to have an empty home. It's not illegal to leave it empty. But if the property is being actively used, it's maintained, whether it's for a business such as Airbnb, or it's a second home, then...

I: But when you define, you say main residence, or not main residence. But Airbnbs are not for main residence?

R: But within that definition, I said reasonable prospect of it being occupied. So within that, an Airbnb, there is a reasonable prospect of it becoming occupied, because it could be a short-term let, it could be let for a week, it could be let for a month. (P20-National Housing Action Organisation-3)

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Homelessness and Temporary Accomadation

“The other issue is, for temporary accommodation, the council loses lots and lots of money. Because Housing Benefit does not cover the full cost of putting people in temporary accommodation, which is a charge per night. So in 2022-23, the council had to spend £5.9m on temporary accommodation. The 2023-24 projection is 8.4 million. That's a really substantial increase. And it's projected to rise to over £15m by 2028.” (P8, SCC-Housing Committe)

“It started creeping in October last year. By November, December, we were absolutely inundated. I had never seen so many people. We normally get around 20 to 30 referrals every month. And for November and December, we had, I think it was 139” (S22-National Housing Action Organisation-4)

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Right to Buy - Council Housing – Empty Home

“So that's 15 million pounds a year that the council has to spend to support people in temporary accommodation. Overall, there are now over 24,000 households on the housing register for social housing. There are 24,000 households looking for social housing at the moment. And I was told by officers that there are around 6,000 people bidding weekly for just 40 properties that go up on the register. You can see how challenging the situation there is. I just wanted to say a little bit more about how there is a perfect storm.” (P8-SCC-Housing Committee Member)

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Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA)

Cumulative beds in private sector PBSA assets brought to market in central Sheffield 2000-2019 (Lee, 2022: 95)

Transient Community and PBSA

• «Sheffield obviously has a lot of students so there's some competition from the student market for housing although increasingly the student market is being accommodated in specialist accommodation which is quite a lucrative area in the property market building for students accommodation. So there will be some competition between students and lower income renters for housing that will be probably a factor in Sheffield»(P18-National Housing Action Organisation-2)

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“In the city centre, there is a lot of student accommodation. There's also lots of flats, so it's where people live quite close together. There's quite a transient community, so it's fine having lots of students in the city centre. It goes down really well. The market in purpose-built student accommodation is quite a complex one, and there is an oversupply of student accommodation in Sheffield. So as local councillors, we often object to new schemes for student accommodation. Conversely, developers who are really trying to provide a student block, they never describe it as student blocks now. But often, you can tell they're intended for students because they have very small room sizes, so they're just not really suitable for long-term living for anyone who wants to make it a permanent home. So that does have a negative impact on the city centre, basically because it's poor quality accommodation. It's just poor quality if people are living in accommodation that's far too small, doesn't have facilities, doesn't have proper windows and light, and isn't somewhere that you'd want to stay in long-term. So that can blight the area because you never get the chance to build up that community.” (P21- SCC-Housing Committee Member).

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Working with the private sector?

“I think the first one mainly is for if you are investing then you more or less you get the property and it secures your money or your investment. And so there's no need for you to live in it” (P2-Urban Planner from Private Housing Development Company)

“It'll all come down to developers' viability and what they can argue in court. Because the council can say whatever it likes. But if the developer takes the council to court, then they often win. Because they can afford better solicitors and it's their game, they know what they're doing. So often the council's reluctant to go that far and say if you're making a development, we want 25% of the houses there to be social housing. And they'll say, we can't afford it, we'll give you 5% or we'll give you 0%. And the council rejects their planning application. They can appeal through the court and more often than not, they're successful. Which again, costs the council money going to court to lose.” (P4-SCC- Housing Committee Member)

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Impacted groups

“Certainly, younger people with jobs and without jobs. And there's no way they're going to get on the housing ladder, certainly from my patch, unless families really, really have the money to help them. And getting into private sector rented is difficult because of the cost.” (P9-SCC-Finance Committee Member)

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R: In 1995-6, 65% of those aged 25-34 who had incomes in the middle quartiles of their age owned their own home. And 20 years later, that had dropped to around 25%.

I: Huge differences.

R: Yeah, so it's massive. It's a massive drop. Across the whole lot, taking out that, that just happens to be the people on middle incomes. Across everybody, I think it's approximately halved. I mean, there are now only about 10% of people under 34 who own their own home. (P18-National Housing Action Organisation-2)

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Conclusion

1. Sheffield City Council has used council tax as tool to overcome issue of second homes. However, there is currently no action or future plan in place to address the issue of Airbnb and short-term lettings in Sheffield
2. The private sector mainly focuses on purpose-built student accommodation. Central area now targeted at non-family and non-local residents
3. Council houses emerged as unexpected form of vacancy, despite high number of people on the council's waiting list or experiencing homelessness
4. Lack of clarity about meaning of emptiness among both local councilors and national campaigning groups. They do not have too much contact with each other and do not know each other's work very well

Thank you very much for listening!

tr4ya@sheffield.ac.uk