Our place to talk – an independent website for supporters of the Liberal Democrat party in the UK.

The most-read independent website by and for Lib Dem supporters. Not paid for by trade unions or millionaires.

Advert

Tag Archives: Empty Houses

Lib Dems force action on empty houses

By The Voice | Wed 4th July 2018 - 9:25 pm

Research by Liberal Democrats in 2018 identified over 11,000 homes that were empty for over ten years. Vince Cable called it a “national scandal”, at a time when “the homelessness crisis is worsening”. Statistics also show that across the country houses empty for six months or more equate to more than 200,000.

Every now and then we have governments making promises to do something about this, but in practice, they have done little to tackle this problem. MP’s reported, last year, that more than 78,000 families were living in temporary accommodation in England alone.

The Liberal Democrats have taken the lead on this. They have today claimed victory as the Conservative government bowed to pressure to take decisive action on empty houses, by giving new tax powers for councils.

The government has accepted the principle of an amendment from Lib Dem Peers (Baroness Pinnock and Lord Shipley) to set in place an escalator of council tax charges. This would mean that the longer a property was left empty, the more council tax would have to be paid.

Continue reading »

Posted in News and Op-eds | 9 Comments

Most Read

Op-eds

What can we really do to influence the situation in the West Bank? (Alan Juriansz)
Welcome to Lib Dem Friends of Gaelic Language and Culture (Caron Lindsay)
Going for four in a row in Scotland (Grant Toghill)
Lib Dems call for action on smart spectacles – some constructive feedback (Caron Lindsay)
AI has moved from future threat to present reality (Sean Worrell)

Advert

Recent Comments

Graham Jeffs
If we want to portray ourselves as pointless, we shall do "nothing". This is a critical moment for us, It is also one of huge opportunity in so many ways. Is...
Chris Lewcock
Thanks Caron. Information gu leòr - from which of course comes galore as in whisky galore. The Esgoil Gaelic Youtube lessons are rather good if you want to bu...
Alasdair
Great blog! I learnt Gaelic as an adult too and love your enthusiasm and passion. Just one small historical point: You said: Gaelic was once spoken vir...
Peter Davies
I'm sure there's a train buff on here who could correct me but I think this is the constituency connected directly to more other stations than any other. No exc...
expats
Matthew Harris 2nd Sep '26 - 2:22pm......@expats Why does the rest of the world not matter? Surely the international community has an important role to play in ...