No Use Empty reflects on the past financial year
No Use Empty (NUE), Kent County Council’s award winning empty homes initiative has to date returned 6,326 homes back to use. The scheme, which provides an exemplar model to tackle the issue of long-term empty homes is ready to play its part in the coming months.
At the end of March 2020 NUE had recycled its original funding of £6m to provide a total of £33.7m in short term secured loans. This has levered £33.3m of additional public and private sector finance making a total investment of £65m to bring long term empty properties back into use, so far.
Demand for loans in the financial year 2019-2020 was such that funds were exhausted by December 2020.
Now into a new financial year, we have a steady flow of projects approved including a terraced house in Margate and the conversion of a church in Dover into apartments, which are waiting to progress once restrictions due to COVID-19 are lifted.
This will not only help bring more empty properties back into use to provide much needed family homes but also help minimise the impact on business activity and continue to support our local economy.