Delay in low demand count

The government has missed its own deadline for establishing a baseline assessment of low demand and unpopular housing, set 14 months ago in its regeneration blueprint, the National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal.

The delay, and subsequent lack of “vital” hard facts, could hamper the DTLR’s case in negotiating with the Treasury for the £8bn housing market renewal fund in the summer’s comprehensive spending review.

And it is likely to anger those who fare badly in the next week’s Housing Investment Programme allocations for 2002/03, which will, for the first time, include demand indicators.

The delay comes after the DTLR select committee last month slammed the government for “ignoring areas at risk” and for not having a “clear method or enough funding” to turn around low demand problems by 2010 (Housing Today, 21 March).

It also backed calls for the £8bn, 10-year fund.

Commitment 67 in the national strategy, published in January 2001, pledged that a “baseline assessment” of demand problems would be ready by March 2002.

The DTLR has told Housing Today it is now unlikely to be ready until at least May.

Aaron Cahill (pictured), policy officer at the National Housing Federation, said: “Let us hope it is only a few months’ delay. If the DTLR is going to take forward the issue of empty homes, then the baseline assessment is an important milestone.

“The timing isn’t particularly helpful because the spending review bidding process should be in full flow right now.”

Empty Homes Agency chief executive Jonathan Ellis said: “The baseline assessment is vital to the overall picture. The agency’s concern is how different solutions can be implemented to tackle empty homes in both high and low demand areas.

“We are keen to put the issue of low demand on the political map and the committee report into empty homes is doing an excellent job at maintaining the momentum.”

Cahill warned there was compelling evidence for the Treasury to provide a fund to prop up ailing housing markets.

“If Commitment 67 is delayed further, there is no reason to delay the implementation of the housing market renewal fund package that the federation – and the select committee – has been calling for,” he explained.

“The baseline assessment should measure the scale of the problem – but empty homes and empty streets in the north west and other places are not hard to find.There’s no shortage of places to start, and hopefully the delay with Commitment 67 won’t be a problem in that respect.”

A DTLR spokeswoman said finding the right measures and indices for the assessment had proved a “complex task”, and the study was expected at some point this spring.