Bid to bring Harrogate district empty homes back into use

A senior Harrogate councillor has agreed to offer taxpayers’ cash to buy three empty homes and bring them back into use.

Councillor Mike Chambers, cabinet member for housing and safer communities at Harrogate Borough Council, signed off a decision at a meeting yesterday to make offers for the homes on Greenfields Drive and Electric Avenue in Harrogate, and Beech Lane in Spofforth.

If agreed by the owners, the council will appoint an independent valuer to provide a market valuation of the properties before selling them on the open market.

But if the offers are ignored or refused, enforcement action will be taken through compulsory purchase orders.

Councillor Chambers said:

“Empty properties are a blight for communities and the council will use all available power to bring them back into use, including assistance and enforcement action when necessary.

“Enforcement is the last choice and we have a range of options available to homeowners to assist them in returning their property to use.

“This includes the Empty Homes Loan made available last month. Owners with a property that has been empty for six months or longer can apply for a loan to undertake essential works on a property to return it to use.”

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811 empty properties in Harrogate district

There are currently 811 properties across the district that have been empty for more than six months – a figure which has risen from 774 in May.

Of the latest figure, 215 have been empty and unfurnished for over two years, while 31 have been empty for over ten years.

The council has previously admitted there is a “desperate” lack of affordable homes in the district and said it was working hard to bring empty properties back into use.

It has also set aside around £2.5m to purchase these properties from their owners.

There are numerous reasons properties can lie empty. In some instances, landlords cannot afford to renovate their property to sell or rent out.

Properties may also have been inherited and the new owners don’t know what to do with them, while others can also fall below safety standards which means they sit vacant until the problems are fixed.

As well as carrying out compulsory purchase orders, councils also have powers to charge an additional 100% council tax on properties that have been empty for two years.

Empty dwelling management orders can also be issued for long term empty properties that are attracting vandalism and causing a nuisance to the community.

‘We couldn’t afford to buy a home in Knaresborough’

In previous generations, getting on the housing ladder for a young couple with steady incomes was a given.

But in today’s housing crisis, it’s a pipe dream for too many people, particularly in high-value areas like Knaresborough and Harrogate.

Married Knaresborough couple Steph Getao, 32 and Scott Gibson 35, spent three years looking for their perfect property in Knaresborough and Harrogate — but failed to find one within their budget.

It forced them to look further afield and they recently purchased a two-bedroom house with a conservatory and garden in Allerton Bywater, a village south-east of Leeds.

At £175,000, Steph said the home was much cheaper than similar properties locally.

Scott works for an electrical manufacturer in Boroughbridge and Steph works in an office in Harrogate. Steph told the Stray Ferret it was “upsetting” that they couldn’t buy a home closer to Scott’s hometown.

She said:

“We both love it here. He has his childhood friends here. It was so depressing. It was either get what you can in Knaresborough or Harrogate or have a choice and look further afield.”

According to property website Rightmove, the average property price in Knaresborough last year was £320,000

In new housing developments, Harrogate Borough Council demands that 40% of all homes are classed as “affordable”.

The government defines affordable as homes sold at a discounted rate, homes for social rent, or through shared ownership schemes.

Steph dismissed shared ownership schemes as a “different face of renting” and questioned how “affordable” these homes really are.

“An affordable home was £200,000 plus. I don’t understand what they mean by affordable. You can’t put that amount of money down and call it affordable.”

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Steph is a director of Knaresborough Community Land Trust, a not-for-profit organisation that is hoping to develop a disused area in the town centre into three flats as affordable housing.

Such initiatives provide small scale solutions. But for Knaresborough to flourish, Steph says the town needs young people to stay and put down roots.

She added:

“Without young people, Knaresborough will get more and more sleepy. The high street is basically all old dear shops! Knaresborough needs its young.

“Scott’s parents and aunts all have houses locally, then you go to the next generation and we’ve all moved out of Knaresborough [due to house prices].

“You’ve got to do what’s best for your pocket, so we went Allerton Bywater. I wish we had more local people being able to purchase within Knaresborough. If we had an influx of young people, we’d see a change in the high street immediately.”

Bilton homes would be ‘catastrophic’ for environment, residents say

A controversial 73-home development in Bilton would clog already busy roads with traffic and be ‘catastrophic’ for local wildlife, residents say.

The development at Knox Lane has had 222 objections. The formal consultation period for the houses was extended until Monday June 22 due to coronavirus.

Developer Jomast and Leeds-based architects Spawforths are behind the plans, which would see a mix of 1,2,3 and 4-bedroom homes built with 130 car parking spaces and new open public space.

As well as concerns over the environment and transport, residents said the development would effectively remove a valued green space and join Bilton and Knox together.

One resident told the Stray Ferret that the fields are currently home to several animals including deer and badgers.

“The local residents are distraught and can’t believe it’s happening. It would be catastrophic for the local environment.”

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Speaking to the Stray Ferret, Old Bilton Councillor Paul Haslam raised concerns over the number of homes proposed.

The site is designated as a site for development in Harrogate’s Local Plan, which was adopted in March. However, the plan identifies 52 potential homes for the site Jomast’s proposals include an extra 21 homes on land that is not designated in the Plan.

Cllr Haslam said:

“The Local Plan contains more than enough houses and there should be no need to build more.

“The extra area was deliberately left out of the Local Plan because it is prone to flooding.”

Jomast and Spawforths issued a joint statement to the Stray Ferret:

It said:

“The Planning Application has been carefully considered and is supported by a suite of technical reports including an Ecological Impact Assessment, trees reports, and a Landscape Visual Impact Assessment. These specialist reports demonstrate that the proposed development would not have a significant impact on the local environment.

“The planning application is supported by a Transport Assessment (TA) which has been produced by the Transport Consultant’s Fore.   The TA looked at the amount of traffic generated by the Proposal and concluded the traffic impacts associated with the development are limited.

“At peak times, the proposed development would result in fewer than 40 vehicles per hour in both directions on Knox Lane.  Therefore the changes in traffic flows associated with the development would not represent a significant impact on the operation of the highway network.”