The scale of the empty homes issue in Essex

Table 615 All vacant dwellings1 by local authority district, England, from 2004

Here are the number of vacant dwellings (long-term empty) for each local authority in Essex :-

Local Authority Name	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
Southend-on-Sea	2,510	2,711	2,772	2,515	2,524	2,566	2,483	2,747	2676	2376	2277
Tendring	2,328	2,579	2,842	2,838	2,972	2,720	2,461	2,419	2560	2338	2202
Colchester	1,824	1,911	1,936	1,958	2,261	2,034	1,888	2,024	1910	1869	1737
Braintree	1,714	1,724	1,842	1,850	1,901	1,947	1,821	1,711	1652	1549	1601
Thurrock	1,411	1,856	1,993	1,903	1,799	1,875	1,732	1,710	1805	1616	1497
Basildon	1,450	1,617	1,695	1,526	1,594	1,784	1,521	1,544	1795	1738	1443
Epping Forest	1,775	1,837	1,704	1,445	1,500	1,501	1,575	1,626	1562	1476	1391
Chelmsford	1,274	1,489	1,551	1,703	1,706	1,674	1,623	1,455	1555	1372	1302
Castle Point	664	712	811	862	877	916	906	1,031	1034	950	799
Uttlesford	898	1,013	869	885	910	964	888	844	880	826	741
Maldon	561	711	743	762	780	692	687	675	633	636	654
Rochford	804	812	976	967	999	987	964	902	863	881	629
Brentwood	622	662	764	688	712	753	787	739	760	603	589
Harlow	627	632	598	561	595	544	579	687	684	563	478

Southend-on-Sea has led the list in Essex for seven of the last eleven years, being second in the other four.

The local authorities are neither equal in size, nor exactly like each other, but it does show that there are considerable numbers of potential homes lying empty, and this is quite shameful really.

If you take into account the size of each authority, and use this to show the number of inhabitants per each empty home then Southend-on-Sea is a mere second in this rather ignominious list.

Local Authority Name	Population	Population per empty dwelling
Tendring	139,916	64
Southend-on-Sea	177,931	78
Epping Forest	128,777	93
Braintree	149,985	94
Maldon	62,767	96
Colchester	180,420	104
Thurrock	163,270	109
Castle Point	89,200	112
Uttlesford	84,042	113
Basildon	180,521	125
Brentwood	75,645	128
Chelmsford	171,633	132
Rochford	84,776	135
Harlow	84,564	177

The total number of long-term empty properties in Essex last year was 17,340. Just when are the Government going to do something about this?