Milton Keynes

Background

Milton Keynes is located in the South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership area, one of the fastest growing in the UK. Consequently Milton Keynes is a thriving borough with a strong economic base and a growing demand for housing. There are some misconceptions about Milton Keynes, particularly in relation to its housing stock.

It is often assumed that it is newly, purpose built but there are settlements on the outskirts of Milton Keynes, such as Stony Stratford and Newport Pagnell which include Victorian terraced properties. Coupled with this are the newer neighbourhoods in Central Milton Keynes such as Fishermead, Oldbrook and Conniburrow with purpose built, 3-storey town houses, with large rooms, built in the 1970’s. As Milton Keynes has prospered and grown there has been a general migration to the outskirts of the City which has left a classic void in Central neighbourhoods, similar to what happened in Islington and Camden back in the 1980’s.

This has resulted in an opportunity being seized on by some people to covert these large, 3-storey properties into Houses of Multiple Occupancy (HMOs) with the associated issues which can often accompany HMOs. The Council’s private sector housing team has long boasted a strong empty housing expertise base with two officers with substantial empty property experience and skills. Until two years ago a dedicated empty housing officer was in post, and supported by discretionary grant funding was able to bring a substantial number of empty properties back into use. Their work at the time was linked to key worker schemes, working alongside housing associations, in addition a rent deposit scheme and a focus on bringing flats over shops back into use.

In 2008 roles within the private sector housing team were made generic so that the officer team – two full-time and two part-time – could be assigned an area and given responsibility for all private sector housing issues associated with their area, including empty properties. With the high volume of houses in multiple occupation, coupled with the number of private sector properties occupied by single families, the dedicated attention which empty homes had received diminished when the accompanying Performance Indicator was removed. The team had a strong enforcement based approach to empty properties and in the past primarily concentrated on long term problematic empty properties.

Although the team continued to address empty properties they were unable to undertake the level of work that they had previously been engaged with, due in part to a shift in priorities.

In March 2011 there were approximately 82,000 private sector houses in Milton Keynes and 1,790 reported empty by the Council Tax team. (Source: MKi ) With a small generic private sector housing team the numbers of recorded empty properties presented both a challenge and an opportunity. It was apparent that the team needed and wanted to refocus on bringing more empty properties back into use.

The allocation of funding through the DCLG empty homes programme offered the team the support to achieve this. The project The first priority was to refocus and strengthen the empty homes expertise by increasing the internal capacity to deliver. This included increasing the Private Sector Housing Officer’s role from part to full time to allow him to concentrate on empty properties, in particular focusing on enforcement actions and developing a loans scheme. In addition, the team's administrative officer role was widened to include preliminary inspections of empty properties to gather intelligence to form a plan of action for the team to work on.

To support this changed role the administrator attended a number of training programmes, including the Housing, Health and Safety Rating System course. With the team strengthened the first activity was to interrogate the existing empty properties database to establish the accuracy of the records, checking with council tax, housing benefit and undertaking a series of spot checks to see if the properties were empty. This resulted in the identification of 137 long-term problematic empty properties. These long-term problematic empty properties have become the focus for the team. Working through the list the team are focusing on 20 empty properties a month, adding these to the Council’s Flare system – a tool which enables empty properties to be tracked through their empty property lifecycle to becoming habitable properties.

To support the council’s renewed approach an empty homes loan scheme has been introduced, which provides a 5 year, flexible, bridging finance secured as a charge on a property. The scheme is managed overall by the Flexible Home Improvement Loans Company, which also covers some local authorities in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Surrey. The team are educating owners on the key benefits of the scheme and are working closely to return properties to use. The introduction of this scheme was a welcome replacement to the empty homes grant funding which was removed in 2008.

Internal partnerships with relevant teams across the council are strong and include building control, council tax and housing benefit. The team held a series of briefings with colleagues raising awareness of empty properties and where teams could work collaboratively to bring these back into use, primarily through sharing information and intelligence. The strength of this work resulted in a reduction in the cost per unit of bringing empty properties back into use of between 10 and 40,000 per unit compared with a social housing grant per unit of £55,000 - £80,000 for social rental housing. Due to recent changes in staffing the team are looking to resurrect this support network through an empty homes working group, which is being established.

Project

The first priority was to refocus and strengthen the empty homes expertise by increasing the internal capacity to deliver. This included increasing the Private Sector Housing Officer’s role from part to full time to allow him to concentrate on empty properties, in particular focusing on enforcement actions and developing a loans scheme.

In addition, the team's administrative officer role was widened to include preliminary inspections of empty properties to gather intelligence to form a plan of action for the team to work on. To support this changed role the administrator attended a number of training programmes, including the Housing, Health and Safety Rating System course. With the team strengthened the first activity was to interrogate the existing empty properties database to establish the accuracy of the records, checking with council tax, housing benefit and undertaking a series of spot checks to see if the properties were empty.

This resulted in the identification of 137 long-term problematic empty properties. These long-term problematic empty properties have become the focus for the team. Working through the list the team are focusing on 20 empty properties a month, adding these to the Council’s Flare system – a tool which enables empty properties to be tracked through their empty property lifecycle to becoming habitable properties. To support the council’s renewed approach an empty homes loan scheme has been introduced, which provides a 5 year, flexible, bridging finance secured as a charge on a property.

The scheme is managed overall by the Flexible Home Improvement Loans Company, which also covers some local authorities in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Surrey. The team are educating owners on the key benefits of the scheme and are working closely to return properties to use. The introduction of this scheme was a welcome replacement to the empty homes grant funding which was removed in 2008. Internal partnerships with relevant teams across the council are strong and include building control, council tax and housing benefit. The team held a series of briefings with colleagues raising awareness of empty properties and where teams could work collaboratively to bring these back into use, primarily through sharing information and intelligence.

The strength of this work resulted in a reduction in the cost per unit of bringing empty properties back into use of between 10 and 40,000 per unit compared with a social housing grant per unit of £55,000 - £80,000 for social rental housing. Due to recent changes in staffing the team are looking to resurrect this support network through an empty homes working group, which is being established.

Impact

Approximately 20 properties will have been brought back into use for the year, which provides an early indication of the successes of the focused approach. Ten units of accommodation will be brought back into use through the loans scheme, with four loans in progress and a further two pending.

The remaining properties have been brought back into use through skilful negotiation with the owners. One of these properties had been empty for seven years and the owner had started an ambitious programme of renovation works but these turned out to be of poor quality. The owner was overwhelmed by the magnitude of the project and the remedial works required rectifying the poor quality work.

The Council stepped into provide a grant to support the owner to bring the house back into use, resulting in a home for a tenant in receipt of housing benefit. Another property, classed as an HMO, had been empty four years due to structural problems. The introduction of Milton Keynes empty home loan paved the way for the owner to apply for a loan of £75,000 to bring the property back into use.

The loan, provided under an agreement between twelve local authorities in the South East forming a limited company FHIL Ltd (Flexible Home Improvement Loans Ltd), has resulted in a potential 5 empty properties being brought back into use between 2009 and 2011.

The renewed focus on empty homes has increased internal capacity to deliver and strengthened partnership working across the council and externally:

• Staff within the private sector housing team have enhanced their knowledge and expertise through development opportunities to undertake new areas of work. Team members are more confident in dealing with issues, providing advice and educating owners, tenants and council teams on the benefits of returning empty properties to use.
• Council teams have a stronger grasp of their responsibilities on empty homes work and are beginning to collaborate more effectively to share data and resources.
• Property owners have a greater understanding of their own role and the role of others within the empty homes programme. The private sector housing team are now viewed more as an ‘enabler’; supporting people to bring properties back into use rather than an ‘enforcer’ ; making decisions on properties with little cooperation from the owners.
• The team have built an excellent partnership with the Flexible Home Improvement Loans company, who manage the empty homes loan scheme and Age UK, who are a supporting partner. Through joint publicity activities, the scheme continues to raise its profile and there is a growing interest from owners across the town.
• The senior manager in the team is a key member of the Buckinghamshire Housing Group and the Herts and Beds Housing Group. The meetings provide a useful forum to share experiences, keys lessons learned and best practice amongst housing partners.

The Home Bond scheme offers housing choices through providing properties in the private rented sector, matching tenants with owners and offering a bond guarantee of up to one month’s rent. A landlord’s accreditation scheme which will provide further opportunities is also being considered and if adopted will run alongside the loans scheme.

The team have devised and implemented an ‘equity top up’ through the empty homes loan scheme. If there is insufficient equity on an empty property to qualify for the loan a charge can be applied to the landlords own property alongside the empty property, to ensure there is adequate equity available.

Lessons Learned

• Raising awareness and educating staff, partners, owners and tenants of the key benefits of the empty homes programme enhances knowledge and strengthens partnership working. It also helps to foster a culture where the council is viewed as an ‘enabler’ rather than an ‘enforcer’; working together with owners to bring properties back into use.
• Providing training and development opportunities for staff to assume new areas of responsibility builds internal capacity to deliver and improves the overall effectiveness of the team.
• Investing some time to explore more flexible approaches to return empty properties to use can achieve positive outcomes in the longer term. A loan scheme can offer owners adaptable housing options and payment methods that are suited to individual circumstances.
• Adopting a co-ordinated system to record and share data across teams, is an essential mechanism to manage activity and review progress, improving overall service delivery.

Reference

Jane Harrison
Senior Manager Private Sector Housing
Milton Keynes Council
Civic Offices
1 Saxon Gate East Central
Milton Keynes
MK9 3EJ
Tel: 01908 253281
jane.harrison@milton-keynes.gov.uk
www.miltonkeynes.gov.uk