We have a housing crisis. Things are so bad that we’ve recently had very high house price inflation.

One cause has been suggested as the number of empty homes for than one year. But over the last four years the number of empty homes has fallen by one-third. In Southwark since I was first  elected when we had 5,500 empty properties it halved. Partly this is the coalition government allowing councils to double council tax and partly because properties are so much more valuable now. This Southwark halving of empty properties has been repeated London wide and represent 0.64% of homes.

For England the empty property number have declined from 2009 316,251 down to 216,050 in 2013 (the latest figures). With 23.236 homes the empty ones equate to just 0.93%.

If you count empty homes empty for just 6 months – repairs, bereavement then the proportion rises to 1.74%. Not a huge proportion.

So if the housing problems aren’t being caused by empty properties – we need to either increase supply or decrease demand….