THERE are more than 1,000 empty homes in the Winchester City Council district, it has been revealed.

At a full council on Wednesday, November 6, civic chiefs heard how a total of 1,043 homes are empty, 433 of which are in Winchester city, prompting some to wonder whether they couldn't be reclaimed to ease the housing crisis.

The matter was introduced by Conservative group leader Cllr Caroline Horrill, who asked: “How many empty homes does the council have in total in the district and how many by ward?”

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The council chamber in Winchester on November 6 (Image: Sebastian Haw)In response, deputy council leader Neil Cutler OBE said: “In October this year there were 1,043 homes registered as empty. Of these 815, which is 78 per cent of them, have been empty for less than one year. 112 of them, that’s 10.7 per cent, have been empty for between one and two years and 90 have been empty between two and five years, which is 8.6 per cent. […] Three houses have been empty for over 20 years.

“The empty homes for less than one year represent 1.39 per cent of the total number of homes [almost 60,000] and for more than one year 0.39 per cent.”

The figure, Cllr Cutler said, is always at its peak in October due to students not having registered themselves.

In the city of Winchester, he added, the total number of empty houses is 433, making up 41 per cent of the empty homes in the district.

Cllr Horrill also wanted to know whether the city council plans to incorporate these empty properties into its housing targets.

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She said: "We know that the Labour government is actually focusing on housing and the imposition of a top-down target on us of potentially 4,800 additional homes in the district they have also and that they want to bring empty homes back into use as part of that drive.

"Would the cabinet member agree that this council should do all in its power to bring the empty homes that [have been empty for] over one year back into use, using potential CPO [compulsory purchase order] powers or all other means to actually bring that stock into use so that we can add that into our housing availability rather than having to always build new?"

Cllr Cutler replied: "There are some opportunities to explore, [...] but I can't make any commitment to our current policy."