611 empty homes in Guildford says Sue

1.22.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 14th Apr 2008

Under the Freedom of Information Act, Sue Doughty has found out that in October last year, there were 611 long-term empty homes in the borough. The number of homes lying vacant in the borough has actually increased by 8%, from 564 in 2006.

Sue Doughty, Parliamentary Spokesperson for Guildford, said, "Empty homes represent waste, financial expense and missed opportunity. They can blight communities, attract vandals and squatters and tie up the resources of local authorities and the emergency services.

"Bringing empty homes back into use is a sustainable way to meet future housing demand and helps to alleviate pressure to develop greenfield sites.

Research commissioned by the Empty Homes Agency has found that refurbishing energy-inefficient old homes causes about the same lifetime CO2 emissions as pulling them down and building anew.

"This demonstrates that the government need to support the Empty Homes Agency in bringing the estimated 150,000 long-term empty homes in England back into use" said Sue.