Southwark Council Took Thousands of Days to Relet Empty Social Home

The Southwark party’s internal correspondence showed that in 2017/18 one council home took 3,122 days to be relet after a resident moved out of it.

The Labour-run council classified the property as a “major void” as it needed significant work after being vacated.

Although this one incident may be an anomaly, the council has been struggling to turn around its empty homes in the past decade.

Vacant council homes that need major works took on average 110 days to be relet in 2021/22, which is almost double the time it took to turn around in 2010/11.

Other properties that need less significant repairs or upkeep, also known as “minor voids” similarly stayed empty for an increasingly lengthier time in the last ten years.

Minor voids turnaround times more than doubled from an average of 27 days in 2010/11 to 75 in 2021/22.

Both major and minor void relet times stayed above 2010 levels in the years prior to covid, which the council claims is a factor behind its slow response.

While, these figures show Southwark Labour is failing to hit its own performance targets to relet minor voids within 28 days and majors within 100.

Commenting Cllr Emily Tester, Southwark Liberal Democrat Housing Spokesperson said:

“Whoever is responsible for a home taking thousands of days to be turned around, whether that is the council or not, needs to seriously examine why they are depriving our residents of a place to live in for so long. Our housing crisis, however, means the council’s deteriorating performance over the years is particularly galling. Even if it manages to better its turnaround times as promised, every day a property stayed empty was another day on the council homes waiting list for one of our residents. Going forward, Labour may be able to boost their efforts if they explore policies such as offering cash incentives to tenants for keeping homes in a good state.”