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We're obviously not going to agree on this but you should read this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/38893772/housing-crisis-why-not-use-empty-properties200,000 empty homes are not enough to fill a gap which needs 250k a year.
As that article makes clear, you also can't make people live in places they don't want to live (often for very good reasons).
I'm very much afraid that I don't rate Shelter's 'expertise' in this at all. I could say more, but I won't.
Fox-
Pete, I've read all of this stuff. Just to give you an example:
John Bibby from the charity Shelter explains that this is usually for economic reasons, such as local industries closing down.
"Often its because the houses are in places where there aren't enough jobs, where actually those homes aren't really needed that much," he says.
The feeling is that there is little point spending money on empty properties if no-one wants to move to the area where they are.
"So this is not just a problem with needing more homes," John adds. "We need to have more homes where people actually want to live."
This is, quite simply, a fallacy.
My point stands.
Also, my point about Shelter isn't even tangentially related to the point of view attributed to Michael Gove on 'experts'.
Oliver Schick
Not long at all. A couple of years at the most. Compare this to the immense speed with which London has exploded in the last two decades.
That's not a factor worth considering at all. If different people live somewhere, the culture will adapt. And I don't accept the very southern-centric idea that somehow the North is to looked down upon like that.
They are. There are hundreds of thousands of empty properties around the country. Thousands of buildings at risk. With a few exceptions (the biggest heritage cases) fixing up existing buildings is quicker and cheaper.
They talk just the same rubbish that everyone talks who accepts the false premise that there isn't enough housing. There's a conceptual sleight-of-hand here--of course, 'housing' must be that which is fit to live in, and many empty houses are not, so technically they don't count as 'housing'. That they can be fixed up means they are easily potential housing, though.
I'm very much afraid that I don't rate Shelter's 'expertise' in this at all. I could say more, but I won't.