More than 3,500 empty homes in Wiltshire could help solve housing crisis
One action group has called the figures "exceptionally worrying"
Campaigners are arguing that the thousands of homes currently empty across Wiltshire should be used to help solve the national housing crisis.
Government figures show that, as of October 2020, there were 3,540 homes unoccupied in the county, up from 3,204 from the year before.
Of these, 2,032 had been empty for at least six months, while the rest were second homes.
This means one in every 63 properties in Wiltshire were out of use.
Action on Empty Homes have called the figures "exceptionally worrying" as they contribute to the half a million that lie unused across the country.
There are 80 households in Wiltshire in temporary accommodation as of September, including 65 children.
The group say these empty properties could help house the homeless.
Director Will McMahon said:
"It can’t be right that in the last four years we have seen an escalating housing crisis while the number of long-term empty homes keeps rising.
There are over 100,000 children languishing in overcrowded and temporary accommodation at a time when we know that overcrowded housing is being linked to the spread of the coronavirus and to higher mortality.
It will be impossible to ‘build back better’ if we keep letting our housing crisis get worse."
Housing charity Shelter said it is frustrating to see so many empty properties, but a new generation of social homes is needed to solve the problem.
Chief executive Polly Neate said:
"Tackling these empty homes is not an adequate alternative to building more genuinely affordable housing.
We could fill every one of these properties and we still wouldn’t have solved the chronic housing shortage we face."