Dozens of council homes remain empty in Doncaster but figure is falling

Under St Leger Homes, latest reports show there are 147 empty homes – which is down from 170 in just three months.

Mayor Ros Jones has previously called on St. Leger Homes to get empty dwellings back on the social market as a priority in order to get residents in properties, bringing down waiting lists.

Housing bosses said of the 147 homes, eight are classed as ‘non-lettable’ and five are awaiting demolition.

Of the 139 available to let, 29 were fully repaired and available while 46 were under offer.

Empty properties also result in a rent void for the authority and the figure stands at around 0.8 per cent – down from the highest figure in December 2020 and since the pandemic started.

St. Leger officers said that a rent void of 0.5 per cent equated to around 100 empty homes.

Housing bosses said a number of measures were being taken in bringing down the number of empty properties. These included analysing refusal reasons and putting measures in place to reduce people rejecting properties and additional advertising using Zoopla.

Other measures include working with area housing teams and partners on low demand areas to improve let-ability of hard to let properties.

Nigel Feirn, head of finance and business assurance at St. Leger Homes, said: “A number of long standing empty and low demand properties have adversely impacted on performance as they became relet.

“Stringent monitoring remains in place across all teams involved in the key to key process to ensure work is completed in voids and all teams are working collectively to ensure that voids are re-let at the earliest opportunity to ensure a continued improvement in performance.”

Speaking last year, Mayor Ros Jones said: “I want to see a concerted effort to bring down the property voids, because as soon as we get the voids down, it creates a home for someone. Therefore, we will be monitoring this extremely closely.”

“While we still have the voids, that means somebody has not got the opportunity to have a proper home.”