Time to tackle property blight

PRESSURE was mounting on council chiefs today to use new powers to seize and restore an eyesore house in Acomb that has blighted the lives of neighbours for eight years.

Jean Waldron, who lives with her husband, Peter, in the bungalow next door to the derelict house in Almsford Road, said it would be a "brilliant idea" if the council could use an Empty Dwelling Management Order (EDMO) to take over the property and do it up.

Mrs Waldron said the empty bungalow had been lived in when she and her husband moved into their bungalow ten years ago. But it had been empty for eight years, she said - and had gradually got worse and worse.

There had once been a fire in no 17, which had caused smoke damage to their own home, Mrs Waldron said. On another occasion, a tree belonging to the property fell into their garden and smashed their garage.

The house was regularly vandalised and acted as a magnet for yobs, she said. "They know it is empty."

Mrs Waldron said she was more used to living next to the empty bungalow now. "But it used to frighten me, especially when my husband was at work. You could hear people trying to break in, even when the windows were boarded up."

Eileen Sanderson, who lives opposite the empty bungalow, tried to buy the property in 2002. It needed a bit of work doing, but it was in much better condition than it is today.

"It's an eyesore," she said. "The council should do anything it can to get it sorted out."

Councils were given powers to use the new EDMOs in 2006. The orders allow local authorities to take over an empty home, do it up, and rent it out for up to seven years - although the new powers fall short of compulsory purchase.

Council leader Steve Galloway said yesterday few councils had made use of the new powers because the orders were costly, time consuming and easy to evade.

But Acomb Labour councillor Tracey Simpson-Laing, who has raised the issue alongside fellow ward councillor David Horton, said the ruling Liberal Democrat group was putting obstacles in the way.

There were 500 empty properties in York, Coun Simpson-Laing said - and a shortage of affordable homes. "It is scandalous that houses are lying empty. We should not be putting barriers in the way. We should be looking at how we can get around the legal issues, which are not difficult."

People living next door to derelict homes were in a "nightmare situation", she added. The council had a responsibility to help them. "Would Coun Galloway be saying the same if he had one of these properties next door to him?"

Ruth Abbott, the city council's housing standards and adaptations manager, said that in April last year there were 585 empty homes in York.

The council's policy was to focus its limited resources on maintaining council properties in decent condition, she said. Where privately-owned properties were left empty for long periods, the emphasis was on trying to work with the owners to bring them back into use - sometimes offering them a grant to do up the properties.

EDMOs were one tool that was available where the owners of empty properties failed to act, she said. "But there would be resource implications."

Officers will report back to councillors in July on just what those implications will be. "It will then be up to councillors to say what they want to do."

So it will be a political decision, in other words.

The Empty Homes Agency, an independent charity which campaigns to get empty housing back into use, is urging local authorities to make more use of the new powers.

The agency says authorities such as Manchester City Council have made effective use of EDMOs to force owners to restore derelict properties. The authority threatened to serve 40 of the new orders, said Henry Oliver, policy adviser to the agency. "I don't think they had to serve any because just by saying they would serve them they got what they wanted."

So is Coun Galloway likely to change his mind? The council leader said he had never ruled out using the new orders - he had simply made clear they would be costly and cumbersome, and might be easy for owners to evade.

He was "very sympathetic" to the plight of people living next door to homes such as 17 Almsford Road, he said, and the council would be looking at the implications of using EDMO powers in July. "But it would be an illusion to think that they are some kind of panacea. That's not true."

The mystery owner of No 17

Almsford Road in Acomb is a street of neat bungalows with tidy, well-cared-for gardens.

Except for No 17. The windows are boarded up, the front and back gardens unkempt and full of junk, and part of the fencing put up not long ago is already falling down.

Patches on the roof show where tiles were replaced. Before that, says neighbour Eileen Sanderson who lives opposite, she could see right through the roof.

Neighbours know who the owner of the house is: some of them used to live next door to him. The Press understands he lives in York, but left Acomb around eight years ago when he inherited another property. The house at 17 Almsford Road has been left to decay ever since.

Plenty of people have expressed an interest in buying the bungalow while it has been empty. Down the years a number of people had asked about it, said Eileen, who once tried to buy the property herself. "It's not that he couldn't get a buyer for it."