See answers to previous information requests

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please provide the following information relating to derelict, uninhabitable or long term empty buildings in your council area.

1. Long term empty residential properties
Please provide, for each of the past five financial years (or the maximum period available if shorter):
a) The total number of residential properties recorded as empty for more than 12 months: 388
b) The number of those properties recorded as empty for more than five years: 18
c) The number of properties subject to any long term empty council tax premium: 277

2. Properties recorded as uninhabitable/derelict
a) The number of properties that have been removed from the council tax or business rates list on the basis that they are uninhabitable, incapable of beneficial occupation, or derelict, for each of the past five financial years: 22 Council see below comment regarding Business Rates
b) If available, a breakdown by:
- Residential:
2025 – 4
2024 – 5
2023 – 3
2022 – 5
2021 – 5
- Commercial / non domestic The Council confirms it holds information within scope of your request; however, the information is not held in a form that can be readily extracted by running an existing report or applying a system filter. To locate and extract the information requested would require a manual review of each individual record, and there are 531 records held on our system for Business Rates

We estimate that complying with your request would exceed the “appropriate limit” under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. This is because the work required to locate, retrieve and extract the information would take more than 18 hours. (Section 12)
In accordance with our duty to provide advice and assistance, you may wish to refine your request. For example, we may be able to provide for an individual financial year ie 2025/26 but not multiple years.

3. Enforcement and safety action
For each of the past five financial years, please provide:
a) The number of Dangerous Structure notices, Environmental Protection Act notices, or similar enforcement actions issued in relation to empty, derelict, or unsafe buildings
b) The number of cases where the council has undertaken works in default on empty or derelict buildings
We do not report on this. Building Control deals with dangerous structures but does not record whether the property is empty.

4. Council expenditure
Please provide, for each of the past five financial years:
a) The total expenditure incurred by the council responding to or managing derelict or long term empty buildings, including (where identifiable):
- Emergency safety works
- Securing or fencing buildings
- Legal and enforcement costs
Response to follow

5. Compulsory purchase and acquisition
Please state:
a) The number of occasions in the past five financial years where the council has:
- Considered
- Initiated: 1
- Completed
a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) or equivalent acquisition relating to empty, derelict, or long term unused buildings.