Empty Homes Week

Published: 15 February 2021

To mark Empty Homes Week Derby City Council is recognising its Empty Homes team who take the lead in ensuring the authority is nationally recognised for its commitment to bringing empty homes back into use. Officers in the team have now twice won the national award of ‘Practitioner of the Year’, from the Empty Homes Network.

The team offers support and guidance to help owners, deal with complaints about problem empty properties and has the power to compulsory purchase empty properties to increase the supply of housing available.

With around 2,300 registered empty homes in the city, of which 1,100 have been empty for at least six months, there is still a great deal of work to do with around 3000 people on the waiting list for a home.

If you have a property that has been empty for over six months and would like help to sell, let or lease the property or need financial assistance to complete work then please email the Empty Homes team at and a member of the team will contact you.

In recent months our award winning team has successfully provided interest-free loans to help owners, including the Harvey Property Solutions Group, turn derelict properties into high quality homes to let or owner-occupy. They have purchased empty homes directly from owners to let as affordable housing with high quality renovations. Carried out the compulsory purchase or enforced sale of long-standing empty homes and helped owners lease property to a housing provider, enabling owners to step away from day to day management responsibilities but gain a guaranteed, fixed income for anywhere between 2-15 years.

We’re also inviting residents to have their say on new Empty Homes Strategy consultation to help inform its next steps. You can take part by reading the Empty Homes Strategy and either completing the online survey or emailing Housing Strategy before Tuesday 27th April.

Councillor Roy Webb, Cabinet Member for Adults, Health and Housing said:

We want all properties in Derby to be available for people to use and the Empty Homes team have done fantastic work over the last few years in reducing the number of properties standing vacant in the city.

They are there to help you if you have an empty property you need to sell, let or lease so please do get in touch.

We also want to hear from everyone on our new strategy through our consultation process.

Housing