George Clarke exclusive ahead of Channel 4 empty homes show

During filming for the 'Great British Property Scandal' - to be aired on Channel 4 next week - TV architect George Clarke sits down with 24housing reporter Julien Tremblin in an empty home that has been refurbished for the programme to share his views on the housing crisis.

JT: When did you first think about doing a show about empty homes? Did something trigger it?

GC: It all started for me in 2004. I am from the North East and was taking a train from London back up to Newcastle and it cut through an area called Gateshead. It’s got a lot of typical terraced houses, classic Billy Elliott-style houses with rows of backyards and back alleys.

And I saw a lot of people being moved out of those houses to create empty properties. It was a Government regeneration scheme called Pathfinder, launched by John Prescott. It was all about getting rid of the old housing stock and building new which is fine in principle. I’m in favour of new build housing but if you move people out, you have to make sure they move to something good, or even better. They were promised that they would have a new build house but didn’t get any. So they were moved out to temporary accommodation, sometimes even moved into accommodation that was worse, at a huge cost to the taxpayer, probably in billions of pounds. And those houses were just left empty for years and years and years. They weren’t refurbished, nothing was done to them at all. And then, new houses that were promised, weren’t built.

So I just got frustrated and really angry about the number of empty homes that were being created. And to me, that didn’t make any sense. I’m an architect, I know the property business pretty well, but every time I see an empty home, I just can’t understand it. Surely, it could be someone’s house, surely it could be rented out. We have 350,000 long term empty homes in the country and we’ve got millions of people on the waiting lists, so that doesn’t make sense to me. What I want to show through the campaign is how affordably and creatively we can bring empty homes back into use.

JT: The show is supposed to give some tips on how to bring empty homes back into use. Could you give us a few examples?

GC: The main thing is really to keep costs down as much as possible. Financially, it’s got to stack up. And so you can’t over specify anything. Everything in this house is really simply done. The second thing is to put in affordable ecological measures as well. One of the things that people struggle with are their bills, especially working-class people we’re talking about here. So you need to do this initial investment to get as much insulation as possible, double glazing on the windows, energy efficient boilers. Putting those simple measures in place will save them a lot of money every year.

Also, the main thing when looking at an empty property is really to make it suit the demand in the area. The big problem with this property [empty home refurbished by Clarke's team] is that it was three small one and two-bedroom flats. There wasn’t a demand for that in the area anymore. That was part of a kind of trendy idea from the nineties to house as many people as possible. In fact, what we’ve done is de-converted the property from 3 or 4 flats to a wonderful family home to suit the demand in the area.

JT: A problem with empty homes is that many of them belong to private landlords. The Government wants to double the council tax for people who keep a home empty. Would you support that?

GC: Well I think you should quadruple it! If it’s a property which is going to be refurbished or it’s part of a general plan, that’s absolutely fine. But if it’s a property that is just sitting empty for four or five years because someone can’t be bothered to do something with it or if it’s a tax dodge or the home is left empty for financial reasons, I think that’s scandalous. So when councils and the Government talk about doubling the council tax, I think they should triple it or quadruple it. As part of this campaign I want to break the current situation that creates so many empty homes. There is always a unique story behind every empty property. You need to find out what it is and try and help those people getting them back into use. I think it’s unacceptable for properties to remain empty. As long as there are people on waiting lists, it’s scandalous.

JT: The programme comes just after the housing strategy, which was published by the Government last week, do you welcome it? Grant Shapps said he would pledge £50 million extra to bring empty properties back into use.

GC: Like every government, they are very good at grabbing headlines. Last week they announced £400 million to promote new-build housing. What they forgot as part of that announcement, is that only the year before David Cameron and George Osborne cut £4 billion from new-build housing. It was a bit of a slap in the face to take £4 billion away and the next year to give £400 million back and show it as a good thing.

And when it comes to empty homes, they’ve committed £100 million last year plus £50 million last week. Well that’s not enough, and I'm worried it will be spent unwisely. We’ve thrown billions and billions in the housing system, which is hampered by red tape, bureaucracy and mismanagement and all of that money has now disappeared and we haven’t achieved anything. So we need to be more creative about the money, we need to have less bureaucracy. A message to the Government would be that if they really want a bigger society, then they should give more power to people to get their hands on that money and bring empty homes back into use.

What I’ve proven with this particular home is that we have done this build for less money than councils and housing associations would probably do it for. Because I’ve just got on with it with my team, without any red tape and bureaucracy, and just done it. What I want to do about this £150 million sitting there is to try to get my hands on that money to set up an empty home low cost borrowing fund.

So if you’ve got an empty property that needs work done to it, you can personally apply to get some of those funds at a low cost borrowing. The problem with the Government’s policy is that it’s £150 million worth of grant. Which means when it’s gone, it’s gone, there is no more money. If that was a long-term scheme and people borrowed against it, people could just do the property up and you could offset the costs with the slight increase in rent to pay that loan back. Which basically means the money goes back into the system.

So there is constantly a kind of regenerating loan scheme that people can just tap into to borrow eight, nine, £10,000 pounds, do the property up, pay the loan back within three or four years and that money gets back into the system to fund more projects.

JT: A common problem with housing strategies and schemes is that they keep changing every two or three years so even a scheme that is launched can be stopped very quickly such as the recent Feed-in-Tariffs...

GC: In some ways, I think we’d be better off if the Government didn’t get involved in housing sometimes because they only think about the next election, about grabbing the next headline. Actually, if you removed housing from the Government and gave it to an independent professional body, I think they would be able to set up long term strategies.

JT: But it appears lots of councils are already trying to build up strategies and find innovative ways to bring empty homes back into use and provide more affordable housing?

GC: Yes, but if you think back to when Thatcher came to power in 1979. Since that time, we’ve lost 1.5 million affordable homes from the system because of the Right-to-Buy scheme. At the Tory party Conference, David Cameron says ‘Right to Buy is back’. What a stupid idea! My mum still lives in the council house that I grew up in. She could do Right to Buy, she could buy tomorrow. She would get that with maybe a 50 per cent discount. So the councils are losing properties maybe worth £100,000 but they only get to keep £50,000 from it. That means less money going into the system.

JT: And we don’t quite know how much money councils are going to get back from the Right-to-Buy receipts...

GC: Yeah! Actually, my mum is brilliant, she says 'Why would I want to buy my house? I am more than happy for the council to own it for it to be affordable. If the boiler breaks, then the council comes and fixes it’.

JT: Then your mum is the perfect council tenant?

GC: Exactly, and there should be more of them.

JT: As part of the show and the research around it, what was the most shocking thing you have seen?

GC: There were so many it is unbelievable. I was shocked by the standard of some rental accommodation from private landlords.  We have helped move a lady from a private rental into another private rental but we did the house up so she moved into a good one. She was paying £450 a month for a place that had dangerous electrics, awful damp, it was shocking really.

Don’t get me wrong, I know there are bad tenants as well but there are some terrible properties that landlords have and I think it is their responsibility to make sure that people live in a decent, safe homes. I’ve just seen so many homes that aren’t safe and are being rented out for very good money for profit and that’s scandalous. I think it’s also scandalous that we are not building enough new homes.

The other scandal is how much it costs for us to keep empty homes empty, the worst council for that is Liverpool. They spent nearly £1.3 million last year just to protect empty properties from squatters trying to get in. It is scandal after scandal after scandal, really. I think housing allocations, the points-based system you have to go through to get a property is ridiculous. The people that want to work and pay their bills and contribute to society and not being a burden on it can’t seem to get a home. Because if there is a family with a drug addict, it can probably get more points. I mean they are more in need, to be fair, but there is an imbalance.

JT: Some people will say you still need a points-based system to help councils prioritise when they have limited stock.

GC: Yes and overall, I think it’s scandalous we are not providing enough affordable homes.

One of the other scandals which is very different from what I talked about till now, is that I walked down the streets of Mayfair, which has the most expensive real estate in London if not maybe the most expensive real estate in the world. And I walked for 15 minutes and on one junction at a crossroads, and in every direction you looked, there were two or three empty properties worth a minimum of £20 million each.

But where in the world can you buy a freehold property at maybe 20, 30, or £50 million and then just pay for one security guard to sit out there, all day, every day to stop squatters coming in. That’s London.

JT: Apart from the show itself, what is your day-to-day role in the housing sector? Aren't you also involved with Shelter?

GC: Yes and I get involved in the civic trust awards and things like that as well but Shelter is the main charity really that I support. And I’m also an architect by trade.  

JT: I heard you saying earlier that you got a bit frustrated when looking for a council and a housing association to partner with...

GC: I have spent months and months and months approaching councils and housing associations, offering to turn their empties and bring them back into the system. And most of them said no. Some of them really wanted to do it but because of financial restrictions, they couldn’t. But others were just too scared to do this.

JT: Why would they be scared?

GC: Because they’ve made a lot of mistakes with their housing stock and they were worried that when I turned up with the cameras, all the scandals and the bad things that happened in their area would come to light and they were scared to take part. There was one particular housing group which really wanted to do it and then, as soon as they saw the press log for the series which was called the ‘Great British Property Scandal’, the chief executive called us and said 'cancel the project, we don’t want to be part of it'.

I said why, if you do this, you’ll be the one council that actually looks good, and you will look good. But people were just too scared. And I think that’s a real problem; we’ve been so wrapped up in red tape, so wrapped up in health and safety that I now call us the 'cotton wool society'. We’ve been so wrapped up that we’re all too scared to take responsibility for ourselves. And the Government prevents us from thinking for ourselves and taking responsibility for our own actions and our own risks and I think all these housing associations and councils were too scared to take the risk, they had fear.  And to be honest with you, that fear runs through the system which basically means things don't happen fast enough.

JT: How long did it take your team to do this home?

GC: It took us seven weeks. And I have to say Friendship Housing and Birmingham Council have been absolutely fantastic. I wanted to get that series done for Christmas, we wanted people housed for Christmas. The series transmits next week now. I was against time, everybody kept telling me “no, no, no”. And I couldn’t believe it. I was angry, I was frustrated and I was annoyed that people weren’t brave enough to do this.

And Friendship and Birmingham council came in at the very, very last minute and said “we’d like to try and do this if we can”. And you know, they’ve probably made the same mistakes as other councils and housing associations have but they were brave enough to do it and said “yes, we’ve probably made mistakes, but we really want to change”. And for me, they’ve been an absolute inspiration and I really hope that when people watch the series, they see how brave the council and the housing association have been and what me and my team have been able to achieve in a very short period of time. And I hope that this is the first of thousands and thousands of empty homes that get brought back into use.

Channel 4 is dedicating a week of programmes to 'the Great British Property Scandal' every evening at 9pm, starting from Monday 5 December.