Not Kent County Council’s Steve Grimshaw. He is a sucker for empty properties. It would be his specialist subject on Mastermind.
And that is no mean feat with KCC’s No Use Empty scheme bringing close to 9,000 properties back into use since the pilot scheme was launched in 2005, representing more than £100m worth of recyclable loans administered, and the work attracting a further £63m of private and public investment into Kent.
The Strategic Programme Manager and his modest team of two have developed a business model so successful that not only does it operate at zero cost to KCC while reawakening dejected plots in communities from Dartford to Dungeness but is regarded as best practice with economic development teams from councils across the country visiting to see how it is done.
“When I was first introduced to NUE, I said to my then colleague ‘I know nothing about houses David.’ Well, I do now!”
There is also the small matter of the devolved nations of Wales and Scotland having both adopted the Kent scheme. And now it has reached the inbox of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) with civil servants keen to talk further. Housing is a perpetual hot topic with this offering a viable alternative to house building.
Steve said: “It is exciting. We gave a presentation to the Housing Minister’s advisors who have been conducting their own research which should have concluded now. We have invited the Housing Minister to Kent. I know he has a busy schedule but hopefully we could perhaps see a visit from MHCLG in the new year. That would be great.”
In a nutshell, the initiative is a short-term secured loan fund that targets unoccupied and unfurnished properties that have stood that way for more than six months.
With responsibility for housing, all 12 of Kent’s city, district and borough councils are on board and Steve and his colleagues, and fellow NUE enthusiasts, Jake Body and Tom Davies are in a close network with those countywide departments to hone in on potential sites and combine both their experience and their local powers.
Houses can be empty for all manner of reasons, be it taking time to make decisions after a bereavement and inheritance, a desire to ride the house price market, a lack of funds getting in the way of refurbishment plans or simply life in general.
The new kitchen at the once derelict Hungershall Mews in Tunbridge Wells after the NUE treatment
Routinely handling 30 projects a year, that doubled with the pandemic when construction work could continue in a safe environment. A flurry of skips and scaffolding followed by conversations between neighbours brought more inquiries to the NUE inbox.
It is said one of the most stressful things you will ever do is move house. Steve and his team can have up to 50 projects live at any one time. As a result, Steve has developed a particular set of skills. A finance manager by trade, he said: “When I was first introduced to NUE, I said to my then colleague ‘I know nothing about houses David.’ Well, I do now!
“It is rewarding but there is a lot of hard work in the background. You need to get your legal head on to research Land Registry titles, and then you are checking out planning and then seeking out indemnity insurance policies. You are also looking at any restrictions or covenants, maybe poring over documents which could be more than 150 years old.”
Steve (centre) with to his left Derek Murphy, KCC's Cabinet Member for Economic Development, and colleague Jake Body outside the NUE Sunday School project in Deal, now on the market
Care homes and churches, pubs and even an old police station have all received the NUE treatment, sprucing up the areas they sit in, creating jobs in both the building phase and on completion in some cases, increasing council tax receipts and most importantly, in most instances becoming somewhere someone can call home, many as affordable housing.
Steve added: “NUE cannot solve the housing crisis but it’s making a valuable contribution to achieving reduced waiting lists. Having empty properties, whether they are commercial or residential, can bring an area down and it only needs a little bit of investment and encouragement to uplift some of these properties which creates a ripple effect so we get more inward investment into an area.”
The scheme has morphed to include empty high street shops with associated accommodation and parcels of land with planning permission for small new build projects, including redundant farm acreage. The latest community of 22 commercial units in Whitfield near Dover, called the Tridax Business Park, could have been sold three times over.
The site in Whitfield near Dover before development...
...and the new Tridax Business Park today
Steve said: “The first time someone comes to us it is interest free. When they return, and they do because they say they have a good experience with us, they are okay with being charged a reasonable rate of interest. There is always risk attached to money, but we have not had a default since 2011. You get to know people and there is confidence in seeing them delivering on something.
”This expansion into new products is giving us scope for innovation. We like it when people come and talk to us about finding a solution.”
No Use Empty in Kent celebrates its 20th anniversary next year, and Steve will be a keynote speaker at the No Use Empty conference in Birmingham in May 2025.
After more than 30 years in local government, he may also have one eye on retirement, but there are at least another 20 years of work out there with an estimated 7,000 eligible unoccupied properties in Kent.
What would he like to see in the future? Both the Empty Homes Network and Action on Empty Homes will continue to deploy their lobbying powers to encourage NUE to form a central plank of the affordable housing agenda with the new government.
“Bringing empty properties back into activity use not only benefits Kent residents and communities but provides local businesses with opportunities to work on these renovation projects.”
Steve said: “It is not a statutory requirement on the district councils, and it would be nice if the government focussed its attention on empty properties and not just on new builds.
“It would be great if we could have a south east scheme, especially because of our coastal towns. It’s been good to have that discussion with government and say there’s a model that works which can be replicated, meaning you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
“A couple of the councils have acquired some of our new build properties and taken them back into their housing stock. Let’s make it so we are able to have a sensible conversation with the districts and say we’ve got a number of developers who are willing to do something for you. It’s about breaking through that barrier and being able to adopt a more creative approach to such a challenge.”
KCC's Cabinet Member for Economic Development Derek Murphy said: "KCC is very proud of the No Use Empty scheme and the impact it has had across the whole of Kent. Having seen first hand a number of recently refurbished sites, the quality of the work has been exemplary.
"Bringing empty properties back into use not only benefits Kent residents and communities but provides local businesses with opportunities to work on these renovation projects. The scheme has also developed a number of commercial spaces which are meeting the needs of local firms through providing start-up and grow-on space.
"I look forward to seeing how the scheme can grow in the coming years."
Further information
- You can see a film about KCC’s No Use Empty on an episode of BBC1’s The One Show. It is the first item and is available on the BBC iPlayer until the end of November.
- For more, visit No Use Empty
