Burnley chips away at vacant homes blight

The council is prepared to use compulsory purchase powers to buy long-term empty homes as part of its 20-year efforts to reduce the number of uninhabited homes across the borough.

A quartet of properties on Manchester Road in Hapton, and Grange Street, Ash Street, and Pine Street in Burnley have been left to decay and piqued the interest of the council’s Empty Homes Programme.

One of the homes has been vacant for more than six years. The plan is for the council to acquire the buildings, renovate them, and sell them. Any profit would be recycled back into the empty homes fund.

To date, Burnley Council has bought, done up, and sold 150 properties through the programme, which began in 2004.

Since then, the number of empty homes across the borough has dropped significantly from a high of 3232 in 2009 to 1,731 – the figure reported last year.

The number of long-term empties–homes vacant for more than six months–has dropped from 1,139 in 2017 to 678 in 2023.

Burnley’s bid to reduce the number of empty homes in the borough is aimed at curbing anti-social behaviour.

A report to the council’s executive states that “some properties are impacting on neighbouring properties and attracting vandalism and drug production”.

The report adds that “without intervention by the council…the properties may remain vacant, continue to deteriorate, attract anti-social behaviour, fly-tipping and arson, all of which cause fear in local residents, resulting in a declining neighbourhood”.