Lib Dems lead on providing new homes for people on council waiting lists

6.38.02pm GMT Thu 14th Jan 2010

There are over 4500 empty homes in Oxford, with 1000 families on the waiting list

Lib Dem councillors in Oxford have welcomed the formal decision by the City's Executive Board to go ahead with building new council houses in the Rose Hill area of the city. The cost of the project is £12.2 million, including £4.6 from a special government grant. This will provide 38 new homes and an additional 20 sheltered housing flats.

The project has been ready to go for some years, having been largely conceived under the Lib Dem administration in the city before 2008. But it is only relatively recently that the Labour government agreed to grant money to help councils which have long housing waiting lists, as Oxford's does.

However, Cllr Mike Gotch, an architect by profession, commented that the design of the homes approved by the council was not to a very high standard, and in particular did not pay much attention to the need to keep the carbon footprint of new housing to a minimum.

The Liberal Democrats nationally have today set out plans to bring a quarter of a million empty homes back into use, making homes available for people on council waiting lists. There are over 760,000 empty properties across England which are no longer used as homes but can be brought back into use with some investment. People who own these homes will get a grant or a cheap loan to renovate them so they can be used: grants if the home is for social housing, loans for private use.

The number of empty homes in the area covered by Oxford City Council is 4676.

The plans form part of the economic stimulus package outlined as a core principle of the Liberal Democrat election manifesto. In the first year of the new Parliament, the party would redirect over £3.6bn of spending to create jobs and build up Britain's infrastructure. In the following years this money will be redirected to other Lib Dem spending priorities and to reducing the structural deficit.

Commenting, Lib Dem Party Leader Nick Clegg said: "Allowing thousands of houses to sit empty while millions of families have been waiting years for a home is shameful. These plans are an example of where Liberal Democrat priorities lie: creating jobs and providing more family homes. The cost of bringing these homes back into use is just a fraction of the cost of building them from scratch, yet the Government is sitting idly by while they fall into disrepair."

The plan was announced today by Mr Clegg as one part of the Lib Dems' economic stimulus package that will generate jobs and help Britain on its way to building a fair, sustainable economy.