BROMSGROVE MP Bradley Thomas is urging the Government to set out a strategy to bring empty homes back into long-term use.
According to Action on Empty Homes, England has more than 1million empty properties. In October – the latest figures available – 635 of those were in Bromsgrove District. Of those, 384 had been empty for more than six months.
As part of his fight to save Bromsgrove’s green belt, Mr Thomas has launched a Parliamentary petition. It demands more is done to bring these homes back into use.
It also calls for a ‘brownfield first’ policy after the ‘State of Brownfield 2025’ report from the CPRE found there was sufficient brownfield land capacity in England to support a minimum of 1.41million new homes.
He added 55 per cent of these sites already had full or in-principle planning permission.
Mr Thomas said the Government could meet 94 per cent of its 1.5million new homes target just by building on brownfield alone.
And the petition demands, when houses are built in the right locations, they should be accompanied by sufficient infrastructure.
The MP said that, if the Government built houses on brownfield land first and brought empty properties back into use, the 85 per cent increase in Bromsgrove’s housing target could be reversed, saving the green belt and protecting the constituency from excessive development.
He said: “This is a common sense approach to housing policy in this country.
“It’s absurd the Government is coming for our green belt when there’s just so much more they could be doing instead, like bringing the 1million empty homes back into use and building on brownfield first.
“I won’t stop fighting until this Government wakes up, sees sense and reverses their 85 per cent increase in our house-building target which will destroy our precious greenbelt as we know it.”
More than 3,300 people have aready signed Mr Thomas’ petition.
People can visit: bradleythomas.org.uk/campaigns/ to add their name to the list.
