A total of 763 homes, collectively worth £138,886,000 have been sitting empty in the city for more than two years
Leicester has more vacant houses which have sat empty for two to four years than anywhere else in the East Midlands, according to new research.
More than a quarter of a million people in England were placed in temporary accommodation during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
This is despite an increased number of houses that sit empty across Britain. In fact, 89 per cent of local authorities in England saw an increase in long-term vacancies from 2019 to 2020.
New research from Admiral, gathered by Freedom of Information requests, shows that Leicester had the most empty houses in the East Midlands.
A total of 763 homes, collectively worth £138,886,000 have been sitting empty in the city for more than two years.
In England overall, a total of 268,385 houses have stood vacant for at least 6 months at a collective value of £66.8 billion.
The city also ranked second for having the highest number of long-term vacant houses that have been empty between five and nine years.
According to the data, properties that have been empty for more than two years in Leicester are collectively valued at £84,812,000 – the highest in the East Midlands.
Of the long-term vacant houses that have been empty for more than 10 years, High Peak also has the highest in the East Midlands. Leicester has the third-highest for this time frame.
The study also found that all the vacant properties in the East Midlands that have been empty for two or more years are worth £1,404,257,265 collectively.
The data is based on every council’s yearly publishing of long-term vacant homes on respective government websites and a Freedom of Information request which was sent to every council in England, Scotland, and Wales in February 2021.
