Empty council properties

Local authorities own a wide range of non-residential properties, from shops and warehouses to schools and libraries. A 2020 report by the National Audit Office (NAO) found that this trend has grown, with local authorities spending £6.6 billion on commercial property from 2016-17 to 2018-19, 14.4 times more than the preceding three year period.[1] When properly utilised, such properties can provide a critical revenue stream for councils, reducing their reliance on council tax and allowing for a lower tax burden.

This is significant as council taxes continue to rise, with nearly all local authorities raising it by the maximum amount permitted in 2024-25, resulting in households seeing their council tax bills increase by 5.1 per cent to £2,171 for the average Band D property.[2] Before councils seek to extract more revenue from residents, it is essential that they fully utilise the resources already at their disposal, including any council owned commercial properties. While some periods of vacancy are to be expected in between tenants or for refurbishment works, commercial properties left vacant for long periods of time represent not only an inefficient use of resources, but a burden on taxpayers who still have to pay to upkeep the properties in the absence of a tenant. 

This research examines non-residential properties owned by local authorities that were vacant for either all or some of a two year period from 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2023, including information on what councils spent insuring, maintaining, renovating, and providing security for these properties. It follows work previously done by the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) in 2019 looking at data from 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2017. [3] By comparing the number of unoccupied properties across time and between local authorities this research aims to provide a broad indication of where council resources are potentially not being fully utilised.

 

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Key findings

  • Between January 2022 and December 2023, at least 4,908 council-owned non-residential properties were vacant for all or part of that time.
  • 172 councils provided data on their unoccupied non-residential properties for both January 2016 to December 2017 and January 2022 to December 2023. Among this group the number of unoccupied properties grew by 11.2 per cent from 3,206 to 3,564.
  • Size data was provided for 3,408 properties that were empty for one month or longer between January 2022 and December 2023, totalling 8,347,680 square meters. This is nearly three times the size of the City of London.[4]
  • The total cost of insuring, securing, maintaining and renovating properties that were empty for one month or longer between January 2022 and December 2023 was at least £88,478,082.
  • £61,991,086 of this was renovation costs, with five empty properties comprising £25,950,175 of this sum between January 2022 and December 2023.
  • The most expensive empty property between January 2022 and December 2023 was Parallax, 270 Cambridge Science Park where renovations cost £14,086,092. It was unoccupied for 22 of the 24 months examined.
  • Excluding renovation costs, councils with properties that were empty for one month or longer between January 2022 and December 2023 spent on average £8,117 per property and £155,625 per council insuring, securing and maintaining them.[5]
  • The council with the largest number of empty properties between January 2022 and December 2023 was Sandwell with 165 unoccupied properties, while 23 councils reported they had no unoccupied properties.
  • The region with the most unoccupied properties between January 2022 and December 2023 was Scotland with 1,044 at a total cost of £11,320,325. The English region with the most unoccupied properties was the South East with 818 at a total cost of £24,003,054.

 

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[1] Davies, G., Local authority investment in commercial property, National Audit Office, 13 February 2020, p.4.

[2] Wallis, W. & Williams, J., Council tax bills across England rise by maximum allowed, Financial Times, 21 March 2024.

[3] Hutton, J., Hollow high streets: empty council owned commercial properties, TaxPayers’ Alliance, June 2019, www.taxpayersalliance.com/hollow_highstreets_empty_council_owned_commercial_properties, (accessed 8 August 2024).

[4] City of London, Our role in London, 1 August 2024, www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/about-us/about-the-city-of-london-corporation/our-role-in-london, (accessed 2 August 2024)

[5] Average number of properties owned by a council multiplied by average expenditure per property.

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