Falling demand for housing has forced an inner city council to change its plans for stock transfer
Research for Liverpool city council, which had planned to transfer its entire stock, has revealed that there are around 15,000 empty homes in the public and private sector across the city.

The realisation that this is a permanent problem likely to get worse has prompted the city to rethink its plans for the future of its homes.

The city is now considering large scale demolition, and the transfer of land as well as stock.

Lenders have revealed that they could not fund the whole stock transfer as it was initially conceived. But at the same time private developers are also interested in acquiring cleared land with a view to building homes for sale.

The city plans to flatten up to 6,000 of its own homes. The demand study by the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies also shows that there are 2,000 surplus housing association homes in the city.

Alan Rogers estate renewal co-ordinator said: "At first we were very ambitious - we were talking about a five-year policy of transferring everything, it is becoming clear that it's not that straightforward."

Housing spokesman councillor Richard Kemp said: "After the elections last year we were talking about stock transfer, now we're talking about asset transfer. It's an imaginative way of using the asset, the land, to support our objectives."

Source

Housing Today