Issue - meetings

The Cabinet Member for Health and Housing presented the report and recommendation of the People and Health Overview Committee of 15 September 2025.

(a)           That the Empty Homes Strategy be adopted.

(b)           That the recommendation from People and Health Overview Committee of 15 September 2025, be noted and considered as part of the Council’s planned work to prepare the budget for the coming financial year and ongoing capital programme.

Reason for the decision

To enable officers to work towards implementing the content of the Empty Homes Strategy, bringing long term empty homes back into beneficial use to meet the corporate aims of the Council and the aims of its Housing Strategy January 2024 to January 2029 - Dorset Council.

The Cabinet Member for Health and Housing set out the proposal to adopt Dorset Council’s Empty Homes Strategy, which set out a formal approach to bringing long-term empty properties back into use. The strategy supported the Council’s Housing Strategy and wider corporate objectives and included both advisory and enforcement tools.

In presenting the recommendations, the Cabinet Member advised that the People and Health Overview Committee’s recommendation to maintain the strategy’s budget and increase staffing capacity was noted and would be considered during the budget planning process.

In response to a question about turning empty business properties into homes, the Cabinet Member agreed to investigate this idea.  In response to a further comment, the Executive Director for Place advised that officers collaborated to align work on policies and strategies, to ensure that economic and housing strategies are not produced in isolation of each other.

It was proposed by Cllr G Taylor and seconded by Cllr B Wilson

Decision

(a)           That the Empty Homes Strategy be adopted.

(b)           That the recommendation from People and Health Overview Committee of 15 September 2025, be noted and considered as part of the Council’s planned work to prepare the budget for the coming financial year and ongoing capital programme.

Reason for the decision

To enable officers to work towards implementing the content of the Empty Homes Strategy, bringing long term empty homes back into beneficial use to meet the corporate aims of the Council and the aims of its Housing Strategy January 2024 to January 2029 - Dorset Council.

To consider a report by the Service Manager for Housing Standards.

The Cabinet Member for Health and Housing introduced the Empty Homes Strategy. The strategy had been developed in partnership with stakeholders, with a member Task & Finish group contributing to the strategy development. The Strategy set out all the options available for empty homes to be brought back into use, with enforcement being used as a last resort.

The committee discussed the financial aspects of the report, including £600k capital reducing to £500k per year in 2028/29, and the staffing capacity of the team to deal with the number of empty homes. The capital funding used to purchase empty-homes could be reinvested when the property is disposed. There was wide support from the committee to increase staffing capacity and investment levels, to bring more empty homes back into use.

Proposed by Cllr A Fuhrmann, seconded by Cllr R Holloway.      

Decision:

To recommend to Cabinet that the Empty Homes Strategy budget is maintained and that priority be made into increasing staff capacity

In addition to this discussion, members asked questions of the officers, and the following points were raised:

·         A compulsory purchase of an empty property would be a last resort, and some owners may want to sell their property to the council. Some empty properties could be repurposed by the council, or they could be sold within a few months.

·         There were checks and balances to ensure value for money, which included internal process, a capital strategy board which assesses cost effectiveness, there were also groups which checked rates and tendering, as well as a responsibility of the Director of Housing to have oversight of projects.

·         One compulsory purchase order had been made since 2021, however it was likely this would be needed again in the future and other legal remedies were possible, such as compulsory leasing.

Proposed by Cllr R Holloway, seconded by Cllr J Atwal.

Decision:

To recommend to Cabinet that it approves the adoption of the Empty Homes Strategy.