Homes in East Suffolk sit empty while thousands wait for housing
Councillor Richard Kerry who told us the governments voted on Tuesday, to bring empty homes in the private sector back into occupation
Around four thousand people are waiting for a home in East Suffolk, while thousands of residential spaces sit empty in the area.
It comes as the Government decided on Tuesday to bring empty homes in the private sector back in occupation.
We spoke to Councillor Richard Kerry explained that across East Suffolk there are around 280 houses that have been empty for a long time.
He told us what the housing crisis situation is like at the moment: "Unfortunately, it is absolutely ridiculous."
"If you know the statistics from the housing team is there's probably over nearly 4000 people on the housing register trying to get a Council home.
"Out of that, there's probably just over 1300 people who are actually in housing needs. And they really, really do need a home.
"And as hard as we try, we can't build the homes fast enough to supply that demand. And also in the private sector, the 106 houses that the Council demands that are built on private sites.
"They can only come forward as quickly as the builders want to build them.
"So at the moment we're we're always playing catch up with the number of houses that are required for."
The authority recently announced its going to employ someone specifically to come up with a plan to get the empty homes in East Suffolk back into use again.
The empty homes have been identified by looking at Council Tax systems - with some having been vacant for more than a decade.
All of these houses are in the private sector and are privately owned, they are not council homes.
Councillor Richard Kerry told us: "They're empty for a reason. It may be that the person who's inherited hasn't got the money to do the necessary alterations to bring it back.
"So that's what that officer will do. We'll look, they will look at and how we can best help those people to bring that house back."
Councillor Kerry explained how this could help the thousands waiting to be relocated: "Most of them would be homed, but in their case (they may have) not been adequately homed, so they they may need another bedroom.
"They they may become disabled, so they need a disabled adaptation for their house.
"Nobody necessary homeless because you we have to take homeless people off the streets.
"So as a Council, we have to take those people in and try and accommodate them in the private or the public sector.
We asked what the council is doing to try and improve the housing situation: "I think as a Council, we're doing the best we can at the moment to help and the planning system does deliver on most sites 33% of the homes will be for affordable rent and that's working.
"The houses are being delivered, but as I say, the build is usually developed at about 50 homes per year, so 30% of those are for affordable rent. That will only give you a reasonable 15 homes per year on that one building site."
"But if we can sort of bring some of the empty homes back, they might be quicker wins,
"That's what we're investigating."
We asked him how the council is planning to get this homes back into occupation: "There are a number of things. In the past we do bits and pieces in this.
"There was one instance we found someone had inherited a house and that needed work done.
"So we were able to give a grant to that person. They were able to engage a builder and to pay the money back. They then rented the house out and the council took some of that rent money to pay the grant back.
"So that house became available for someone to rent. And there's the compulsory purchase route we could go down.
"Compulsory purchase is a legal route that we would go down and we would go through the courts and that would enable us to compulsory purchase that home after the persons or persons who owned that.
"So we would legally then go in and obviously it all would be valued by a independent valuer and the Council would be able to compulsory purchase that home legally."
"We do our utmost to try and bring that home and keep it. And help the people who own it.
"Another person who owns and brings it back into occupation.
"But there are people out there who are paying four times the Council tax on that property simply because they can afford to and they won't want to bring that house back.
"We can't make people. But said the last resort would be compulsory purchase through the courts.
"If someone just genuinely couldn't do anything and didn't want to, we could use compulsory purchase.
"There's a number of tools that we've got to help people or or or try and get that home back.
"And it's not until you actually look at the circumstances of that single property that you know what tools you'll have to try and apply to help that person or persons."
The council hopes to deliver between 20 and 30 houses back into occupation and then each year for the next three years.