THERE are 7,800 empty properties in the Bradford District – including 4,489 that have been empty for over six months.

But Councillors have been told that imminent changes to how much Council Tax is paid on empty properties means many of their owners are looking at ways to bring them back into use.

Bradford Council’s Regeneration and Environment Scrutiny Committee were given an update on empty properties in Bradford at their most recent meeting.

The most recent figures show that almost 500 properties in the District have been empty for five years or more. And the Council’s housing team has identified 98 “high risk” long term empty properties that they are urgently trying to bring back into use.

Members of the committee were told that social housing provider Incommunities owned 487 empty properties in the district, 408 of which had been empty for over six months and were classed as “long term” empty.

However, housing officers pointed out that the company was moving residents out of high rise flats in Bradford and Bingley before those structures are demolished, and those empty flats were included in these figures.

Members were given a breakdown of where in the district the empty homes were located.

Owners of empty homes in Bradford could be charged up to four times more Council Tax

The City ward currently has 654 long term empty properties, followed by Bowling and Barkerend with 286 and Manningham with 258.

Bradford Council recently approved major changes to the way Council Tax is paid on empty properties. From Monday people who own a property that has been empty for at least two years will have to pay 100 per cent Council Tax on that property. The next year people will have to pay 200 per cent Council tax on properties empty for more than five years. And the year after there will be a 300 per cent Council Tax charge on properties empty for longer than 10 years.

Housing officer Julie Rhodes told the Committee: “We’ve already receiving quite a lot of enquiries from people looking to bring their properties back into use. They are saying they will see quite an impact form these Council Tax changes, and that is what they were meant to do.”

A report to the members revealed that in the last nine years, the Council has “compulsory purchased” 27 empty properties to bring back into the market.

And it currently has a further 11 that it is looking to purchase.

Councillor Joanne Dodds (Lab, Great Horton) asked at what stage the decision is made to force someone to sell an empty property, adding: “There are some in my neighbourhood that are rotting away, causing problems in the neighbourhood.”

Officer David North said: “It is a very last resort. It has to be a situation where there is absolutely no prospect the owner will bring that property back to use. You need a very strong case to take someone’s house from them. We need to be confident we’ve gone down every other avenue.”