BRINGING empty properties back into use was announced as a priority by Dumfries and Galloway Council this week.
This comes after councillors agreed to fund a new empty homes officer post within the housing department for the next two years.
The move is one of several action steps being taken to ease the region’s housing crisis.
This dedicated member of staff will be working on schemes that will incentivize home owners to bring properties into use as affordable housing, and also provide grants to tackle properties that are considered below tolerable standards and therefore cannot be used.
At the council’s economy and infrastructure committee on Tuesday, councillors rubber stamped reinvesting £1m of income generated from council tax on second homes will into creating more housing in town centres across Dumfries and Galloway.
With the region experiencing a severe shortage of homes for social rent, they also signed off on creating the new empty homes officer position.
Annandale South Councillor Sean Marshall said: “I do think it’s a really good idea to have the two-year empty homes officer post.
“I’m sure that it will make a massive impact and difference, but I was wondering if going forward we could actually measure that against a starting point to see how much impact that has made.”
Jamie Little, the council’s strategic housing and regeneration team leader, said: “In terms of measuring the impact of the empty homes officer, working with the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership we’re intending to analyse the existing data to make sure we have a very robust process in place for understanding how many empty homes there are at this time.
“But the intention is that we will be reporting on the delivery of the empty homes work back through committee as well on a regular basis, just to ensure that members are kept up to speed with the impact the empty homes officer is having.
“It’s a two-year post, and we understand that empty homes have been around for a long time – and I’m sure they will be into the future – and so it’ll be really important to have that data in place to analyse whether or not that’s a role we as a council want to put in place on a permanent basis.”
Councillor Marshall responded: “I do think that it will make a significant difference, and if we have that evidence we can actually back it up and consolidate that post.”
The £1m cashpot generated from council tax on second homes is to be invested as follows: £300,000 spent on support housing developments that will contribute to the regeneration of town centres; £300,000 to provide grants to owners of empty properties to help bring them back into use as affordable housing; a further £300,000 to provide grants to tackle below tolerable standard properties across the region, and up to £50,000 for the council to create an empty homes officer post for two years.
