Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their estimate of the total number of empty dwellings in England; how many of those dwellings are owned by (1) housing associations, (2) local authorities, and (3) private owners; and what steps are being taken to bring structurally sound dwellings back into use.

Statistics on vacant dwellings in England, are published in the Department’s live table 615 (attached) which is available at the following link. This table shows the annual totals of all empty homes, those vacant longer than six months and of vacant dwellings in the local authority, housing association and other public sector tenures.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-dwelling-stock-including-vacants

The number of long term empty homes is substantially lower than when records began. Long-term empty homes are those dwellings which have been unoccupied and substantially unfurnished for over six months. In October 2009, there were 316,251 long term homes in England and this had fallen to 200,145 by October 2016.

Figures are not directly comparable for Private Registered Providers (Housing Association) and local authority dwellings. Figures for March 2016, show there were 11,482 long term vacant Private Registered Providers dwellings and 22,928 local authority dwellings (long and short term).

As to steps being taken to bring structurally sound dwellings back to use, I refer to my answer to PQ 3618283/ UIN HL4471.