€660k spent by Laois council on 'void' houses
Laois County Council spent an average of €11,000 making 60 so-called 'void' homes fit for habitation in 2022.
The latest figures from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage show that the social homes were vacant before the council invested public funds to make them liveable under the Voids Programme.
The Voids Programme supports local authorities in preparing vacant homes for re-letting.
It was also confirmed that in total €660,000, was recouped from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage through the Voids Programme in 2022 by the Laois local authority.
The figure would appear to outstrip a number published by Laois County Council during 2022 which said the the County Hall had been approved to Voids Department Funding in 2022 for 42 units at a total cost of €462,000.
A vacant homes regeneration internal working group was established by Laois County Council in 2022 to map and examine vacancy and dereliction in 2022. When properties are identified the Working Group was tasked with assessing the future use of such properties for housing or otherwise.
Under housing for all, Laois County Council also had a social housing new build target of 200 for 2022. During 2022, more than 500 Council or Approved Housing Body social housing units were under construction in Laois. A further 459 were in the pipeline.
Minister Pippa Hackett highlighted the 60 vacant social houses in Laois, 28 in Offaly and 46 in Westmeath which were brought back into active use in 2022 with support of the Voids Programme.
“My thanks and appreciation to the Local Authority teams in Laois, Offaly and Westmeath who are working to reduce the number of vacant social homes. This is a common sense and a value for money approach which directly and positively impacts on those waiting for homes. I am delighted that the Voids programme, which is a Government fund to bring empty Local Authority homes back into active use, is benefiting people at a time of a housing shortage.
"This approach, and the many others to tackle vacancy, make sense from an environmental perspective. Existing properties have embodied carbon and it is generally better for the environment to reuse than to build from new. I’m aware that many of the homes returned to active use under the Voids programme received energy efficiency upgrades and will be cosier and less costly to run. It’s a double benefit,” she said.
The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O’Brien TD, published figures which show that nationally 2,307 vacant social homes, and their new occupiers, benefited from the Programme. This is just above the anticipated figure of 2,273 vacant social homes, indicating that the intensive work in 2020 and 2021 by local authorities in this area has reduced the number of vacant social homes.
Making more efficient use of existing housing stock is a key action in the Government’s Housing for All plan according to the Department of Housing. It adds that the Voids Programme builds on the ongoing work to tackle vacancy and dereliction and bring vacant properties into re-use for housing.
In 2022, local authorities recouped almost €29 million in funding for stock improvement programmes for the refurbishment of vacant local authority-owned social housing. Of the €28.9 million, €3.6 million supported the transition to planned maintenance and included funding towards stock condition surveys.
The number of vacant social homes that had works done to prepare them for pre-letting was lower in 2022 than in 2021 and 2020. The Department said this is a result of the intense two-year period of tackling long-term social housing vacancy and legacy vacancy. It was always envisaged that the programme would revert to more normalised levels in 2022.
Local authorities are continuing to transition from a response-based approach to a strategic and informed planned maintenance approach to social housing. This is based on stock condition surveys. The planned maintenance/voids programme in 2022 supported this.