Empty house

This month's Council newspaper boasts of turning dozens of empty properties into homes. Yet the Council has let this one stand empty for more than 20 years. Why?

The Council plans to compulsarily purchase this property if it is not put back into permanent occupation by the end of August 2010. This follows two previous compulsory purchase processes which never came to anything. Everyone who supports the process to compulsarily purchase this property and return it to use as a home after decades of standing empty should contact Emma Kumar, Empty Property Officer Brighton & Hove, 01273 29 3297

The community is waiting to see if the Council is going to proceed with the long-awaited compulsory purchase order.

It seems that the Council has, once again, decided not to impose a compulsory purchase order. So the community is still saddled with an empty home and an absent owner.

Apparently the owner is now required to clean up their back garden. Yet they are still allowed to leave the house empty...

A Council notice of compulsory purchase has appeared on the property but that doesn't mean anything unless the Council goes through with it. Nobody has lived there for decades. It's a blight on the community.

A Compulsory Purchase Order has been raised against the house. Documents show the owner received £50,000 from the Council some time ago to make it habitable but the work was not finished and the money not repaid. If the owner objects to the CPO there will be a public inquiry.

There were some squatters there for a while earlier this month but I believe they may have left already.

It seems certain that there will be a public inquiry in September into the Compulsory Purchase Order.

There is no sign of the expected public inquiry/appeal, which is somewhat disappointing the the neighbourhood which is blighted by the empty property and is depriving someone, somewhere, of a home.

This problem has now become a local news item - TV, radio, newspaper and web reports all this week. See www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOo64Dx83Ck www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-15352172 www.theargus.co.uk/news/9314165.Brighton_home_left_empty_for_32_years/

Last week magistrates imposed a £1000 fine on the owner (a Christine Davies?) for not having cleared the front and back gardens. So no change there, then. Other penalties will be enforced unless the whole place is made shipshape by summer 2012 - 33 years after it became vacant. The Compulsory Purchase Order process rumbles along, apparently.