I am continuing to put pressure on to sort out problems with empty homes. At a scrutiny meeting today we discussed various issues and discovered that 700 of the empty homes in the County are owned by Banks and Building societies. Up to now they have been able to get away without paying a penny in council tax. Thanks to government rule changes this can now be scrapped and there appears to be cross party support for charging 100% council tax to these Banks.

I have asked that we look at funding additional staff  to get more properties back into use.  It is possible that this could be self funding because the government will provide 6 years of council tax to councils for each property they bring back into use.