Birmingham has 'most empty homes' in the country

Of the individual local authorities, Birmingham had the highest number with 6,402 empty properties, following that were Liverpool with 5,381, and Durham with 4,279.

The area with the least empty properties was the Isles of Scilly, with just 25, they were followed by Wyre with 128 properties and West Devon with 131.

Regionally, the North West faired the worst with a total of 39,353 altogether, followed by London with 36,868, and the South East with 36,432. On the other end of the scale, the North East fared with just 18,376 across the region.

David Weaver of Reveal gave his thoughts on the analysis:

“Although the government are taking steps to help tackle the housing crisis, the fact that roughly 1% of homes in England have been empty for 6 months or more is staggering.

“When we have approximately 270,000 people in England who are currently homeless, that this many properties are sitting empty is unacceptable. Local authorities need to be given the ability and resource to help return these homes to the market.

“Whether by aiding owners to renovate them so they can be rented or sold, or by investing in programmes like London’s Council Homes Acquisition Programme which enables councils to purchase private homes to use as council housing stock, we need to investigate every avenue to tackle the housing crisis and ensure everyone can have access to a home.”