Episode 11 Britain's Empty Homes Revisited

Over the years, Britain's Empty Homes has been on a mission

to show what can be done to revitalise and transform

some of UK's estimated 1 million empty properties.

Nice to see you again, David. Hannah, how are you?

In this series, I'll catch up with some people who took the plunge

and staked everything on turning unloved houses

into bespoke family homes.

Today we'll be catching up with a couple from an earlier series

who snapped up a bargain -

a derelict church which they hoped to turn into a family home.

Goodness. This is beyond belief.

We'll also be following the Empty Property Officers

who track down the owners of forgotten houses

and help breathe new life back into communities blighted by them.

-There you go.

-Wow. This is just lovely.

And last year, we learned about deserted homes

at a decommissioned RAF base.

Today, we go back to hear about the exciting regeneration plans.

A year ago, I met Christina and Karl Yau,

who bought a disused church in the commuter village of Hartley Witney.

Now, of course, buying a disused church and turning it into a home

is no mean feat, but Christina and Karl were full of passion

for the project and couldn't wait to get started.

Karl and Christina had spent years looking for a family home

in the picturesque village of Hartley Wintney in Hampshire.

We've been looking for a plot of land or a project

for quite a long time.

We've viewed a couple of different properties in the area

and we just absolutely fell in love with this.

Everything seemed to point towards it being a dream house in the village where I grew up

so we just decided to go for it.

Karl and Christina planned to transform this dilapidated church

into a two-bedroom home

with a living room, study and a second floor.

I really love the idea of starting with a blank canvas,

put walls were you want to have walls,

and just make rooms what you want them to be, rather than actually have to work around.

The church had everything they were after,

apart from one crucial element -

there was no planning permission.

We were told when we first found the church that we'd never get

residential planning permission for it,

it was going to be commercial viability.

Undeterred, the Yaus took a leap of faith and went ahead,

buying the building for £170,000.

Their bold move paid off when two years later,

planning permission was finally granted, and Karl and Christina

could begin the delicate process of creating their dream home.

We want our children to grow up

and have the same experiences in the village that I had when I grew up.

That's really important. The space has to work for all of us.

When I first met up with Karl and Christina,

I was keen to find out exactly what their plans were.

-Hello, guys, I'm Joe.

-Hi, Joe, I'm Christina.

-Christina.

-I'm Karl, good to meet you.

-Karl. And this is All Souls Church.

-How did you find it?

-I found it on the internet two years ago now.

We fell in love with it. The area is absolutely fantastic.

The beauty of it, I mean, you look at it on a sunny day like today, absolutely perfect.

I've always known this church

but we never thought we'd ever own it or it would come up for sale.

What's the benefit for you guys of buying an empty property like this?

Having the church and buying it without planning permission

meant that we got it at a reasonable price

and means we can afford to stay in the village in a property

that is way over the price we'd ever be able to afford.

I'm really excited to see inside, so are you happy to show me?

Sure, follow me.

Wow!

What an unusual space, this is fantastic.

It is very much still in its church formation,

it's just a big open space, isn't it? What are the plans?

We plan to put a second floor in.

We'll have two main bedrooms, one at either end

-with these massive feature windows that we've got.

-Beautiful.

When you talk about having two levels, that's what's going to

-give you a light feel at the top?

-One in each of the bedrooms.

Do you have to take the floor down to get two levels in?

Yes, yes. We're lowering the floor slightly but underneath this

is actually quite low anyway, it's a floating wooden floor,

so as you jump around, it's like a trampoline at the moment.

I can feel a slight bounce to it. I bet the kids love that.

-Don't bounce too hard!

-You may fall through.

Stay calm, health and safety at all times.

One of the great things about buying a property with this kind of history

is that you get some quirky features.

You can't miss the big old organ as you walk in.

Is this going to be staying?

Unfortunately not, it's taking up too much space.

There's a lovely stained-glass window behind there

that you can't see, so the light's gone.

But we do plan to re-use as much as possible.

We are going to re-use these knobs.

We're going to make coat hooks out of them.

We're going to make the children toy boxes out of the carcass and the wood from the organ.

So there's a lot of potential to re-use some of the features

-and incorporate...

-We will use whatever we possibly can

in the whole building. We absolutely love it.

Although they were eventually granted permission to convert the church,

it came with strict design limitations.

So, the Yaus had to be clever with the space.

Where are the stairs?

The stairs are over there by the door,

and they'll come in and then go up in an L-shape up into the first floor.

OK. Well, I think we've got to grips with the space in here.

Let's pop outside and have a look at the full glory

-of God's building from the outside, shall we?

-Definitely.

'This was an amazing property,

'but it was only when I saw it from the outside that

'I realised quite what a challenge this renovation was going to be.'

So, that's the inside. Plenty ahead of you there.

What about the building itself? I've seen a few holes. How is it?

Erm, we have no idea, really. We're going to actually have to take everything off,

so all the cladding is going to come off, all the tiles are going to come off,

and then all the structural wood inside will be assessed.

What about the structure itself?

We had a survey done recently, and they reckon within the next

few years, it will actually be falling down.

-Ah. Is that to do with the foundations, or...?

-Lack of.

-Lack of?

Yeah, there is very, very old foundations that aren't up to much.

There is a wooden plate that it rests on that has rotted.

So, what do you have to do? Underpinning?

Underpinning. We're doing a special toe underpin

so then we can put a concrete floor in,

and it's very steel reinforced, loads of steel mesh going in there.

And what is the budget?

About 160, 180,000 we'd like to complete it for.

Yeah, yeah.

OK. It's your first renovation. It's a biggie. It's a massive project.

But yeah, I'm sure if you do arm yourselves with enough

information as you have been doing, I'm sure you can make it a success.

-See you.

-See you later.

'Later we'll see what happened when we took Christina

'and Karl to meet another couple who also took on a unique

'but completely dilapidated building.'

It's really important to get the right people to help you, of course.

We had a fantastic architect, our builder was utterly brilliant.

Get the right people, and that makes the difference.

Throughout the country, it's not just private buyers rising

to the challenge of turning deserted properties into functioning homes.

Local council empty property officers work tirelessly

to track down the owners of abandoned homes

and use their powers to bring these properties back into use.

Back in 2009, Paul Palmer went to visit a vacant building

in central London that was under new ownership.

I'm off to a property in Soho.

It's been recently acquired by a local housing association.

They've just got hold of the keys, so it's a good chance for me

to get in, have a look at the property, meet the guys,

and see what their plans are for it.

The building had been designated residential,

but had been used illegally for commercial purposes

before the housing association bought the place.

Oh, right. It's almost like a little self-contained studio.

It's exactly what it lends itself to, isn't it?

But, of course, you've got the office-type lighting.

And clearly they weren't being used for the purpose

for which they were meant to be used, which was, you know, good quality...

-Residential.

-..residential accommodation.

There's a little kitchenette.

Yeah. Typical office blinds on the window, as well.

The plan is each floor will have a three- or four-bedroom flat,

so that would give us four really nice flats.

It's good for us that we've got you on board as a partner,

because of your skill and expertise in the area,

it guarantees that we know that there's going to be

a successful outcome for this property as well, which is good.

I'm very pleased with my visit.

Things do look very positive for that building.

We spent a lot of time working with different parts of the council

to bring about the change in ownership.

It's really quite exciting, and I was pleased I was able to

get in at this early stage and look to the future with some optimism.

Today, three years on, Paul Palmer,

now a freelance empty property consultant, was keen to come

and see the finished results of this ambitious social housing project.

He'd been working with Rick Bryan of Soho Housing

to rescue the building and put it to good use.

-Rick.

-Paul.

-Nice to see you. How are you?

-I'm good, thank you.

-Three years when fast, didn't they?

-Yeah, just seems like yesterday.

-This is fantastic.

-It's absolutely great.

-Last time we were here...

-Such a change.

It's fantastic. It's a real brightening up the whole building.

If you stand back a bit and look up,

you'll see just how much we did to the facade.

We recast all the window ledges,

-we put back some of the ironwork, we've repointed.

-Wow!

All done with specialist contractors to really bring it back

to its original look.

Very nice. I can't wait to see inside.

Let's go and have a look.

The building work took a year to complete,

and provides much-needed flats

for families on the housing waiting list.

-There you go.

-Wow. Now, this is nice.

I love what they've done.

It's lovely, isn't it? Lovely en-suite kitchen,

and if you remember what it was like before,

this space was just lost space, lost to offices, illegal,

no planning permission for it, and now what we've got

is a fantastic three-bedroom flat in the heart of Soho.

Can I have a look at the rest?

Yeah, let's have a look.

The building's interior has been completely remodelled.

Each of the five flats have family bathrooms,

fully equipped kitchens,

and two or three double bedrooms.

What impresses me overall about this whole project is that you've

-taken something that had a completely illegal use...

-Absolutely.

-..you've thoroughly modernised it.

-It's all very nice, isn't it?

And the fact that we've got a family living here

-in the heart of Soho is really, really nice to see, isn't it?

-Yeah.

Years ago when I saw that building it was in illegal use,

it wasn't going anywhere.

To come back today and to see families starting off a new life

in a building like that, it's just a wonderful experience,

and it's why I enjoy doing my job so much.

-Thanks again. Bye-bye.

-See you.

Transforming an empty property has its rewards,

but it's never going to be easy.

However, when you speak to people who've been through it,

they will tell you the hard work, the stress,

the sacrifices are all worth it in the end.

It took Judith Brook plenty of courage to take

a chance on these derelict agricultural buildings in Rotherham,

South Yorkshire in early 2010, even though she found them close to home.

From probably being about 18,

I used to keep a horse in this building, and I used to

look at it and visualise it as a house. We always referred to it

as the tractor shed, and it was where my dad stored his tractor.

Judith was in the fortunate position that these buildings

were part of her father's farm.

They had been out of use for 15 years before she started work

on transforming them into a family home.

I worked here every day to make this affordable for us.

when deliveries came, I'd help with unloading them.

I dug out in the trenches, did any kind of labouring that was required.

But the renovation wasn't without its challenges.

Planning were not looking at it favourably.

And so I asked the planning officer,

the conservation officers, to come out and have a meeting and just say,

"Look, what can we have and what do we have to do to achieve that?"

And they were great. They came out, had the meeting,

and just said what they would allow, what they wouldn't allow.

Working closely with an architect and a local builder,

Judith spent ten months on the renovation, and £300,000.

At the end of 2010, the house was complete.

The build process wasn't stressful at all,

I enjoyed it from the first day to the last day.

But that is largely down to the good relationship that I had with the builder.

It's a great lifestyle living here.

I'm really pleased that my children will get the same opportunities

that I got of growing up in such a lovely environment.

My advice to anybody doing this project,

I'm sure that everybody that does it wants to do it

and is enthusiastic about it, but enjoy it, it's a great journey.

Earlier in the programme, we met Christina and Karl Yau.

Their prayers were answered

when they found the perfect empty property to turn into

a family home - a disused church in Hartley Wintney in Hampshire.

But the couple certainly had a big renovation job on their hands.

'Everything seemed to point towards it being

'a dream house in the village where I grew up,'

so we decided to go for it.

To help Christina and Karl, I arranged for them

to meet the Naismiths, a couple who bought a dilapidated barn

and transformed it into a bright, modern, four-bedroom house.

When we first saw the barn, it was in a terrible state.

It was complete the derelict, it had trees growing inside,

dirt floors, no roof.

It was actually pretty difficult to picture what we were going to do.

And anybody who came to see it, all our friends thought we were

completely mad that we paid all this money for...

-A pile of sticks.

-..a pile of sticks.

Despite the many structural issues,

Janine and Roy were smitten with the place.

After 18 months of challenging building work, the Naismiths finally realised their dream.

From the wreck of an old barn, Roy and Janine have created a vast,

open-plan kitchen and living areas,

and found room for four bedrooms, too.

Although this barn renovation was on a much larger scale than

Christina and Karl Yau's church, the principles remain the same,

and I hope they'll be able to glean some valuable practical advice.

This is the kind of look I'm really after, you know, the old meets new.

All the contemporary-ness.

With an open plan look, how does it work with a family?

Because, you know, it looks absolutely fantastic,

it looks contemporary, but we've got a nine-year-old, a four-year-old

and a 13-year-old, so noise could be interesting.

You do have to have that space to separate.

So we've made what we refer to as the media room.

Double wall thickness, soundproofed, door closed,

they can be in there and we can't hear them,

even with the PlayStation and the sound system,

and we get on with our lives here if we've got guests in.

With regards to the actual curves and the design,

did you get a lot of help with this?

Because it's fantastic the way it fits in.

It's really important to get the right people to help you, of course.

We had a fantastic architect. Our builder was utterly brilliant,

and kitchen design had an impact on how the whole place looked.

Get the right people and that makes the difference.

Shall we have a look at the rest of the house?

That would be fantastic.

So, this is our master bedroom.

I think the space... It's really great actually seeing it,

because I've always assumed we'd have to have our bed here

where you're stood, but I actually think it would work...

It works fine, yeah. This will be very close to our bedroom.

Seeing the Naismiths' home was certainly an eye-opener for Christina and Karl,

and later we'll find out how the visit influenced their own renovation.

Across Britain, it's not just residential streets

that can be blighted by derelict houses.

Over a year ago, I was at RAF Heyford,

where a community project was trying to revive the old housing there.

Upper Heyford played a vital role during the two world wars

as a training base,

and in the years that followed, it was home to around 15,000

American servicemen who lived and worked on the 1,250-acre site.

With the end of the Cold War, the site was decommissioned,

leaving behind hundreds of bungalows.

I met with developer Paul Silver,

who was planning a large-scale renovation.

We've got 315 houses on the estate which are let,

and really what we want to do is a phased refurbishment programme.

We have now consent to build 800 new houses that fit in amongst it.

And when it's all finished, how many homes will be here?

Overall there will be 1,100 homes on site.

Such a unique chance to actually take on these buildings,

use them, not knock them down, but actually bring them back to life.

We've had to take on board the legacy of the place and make sure we do it right,

because whatever we leave here will last for future generations.

-I'd love to have a look in one. Can we?

-Yeah, sure. Please.

-Please, come through.

-It's quite big, isn't it?

This is the main living space?

Yeah, it's a lovely, open area,

there's a lot of American, '50s facets to it.

The wooden doors on the intercom between the kitchen

-and the dining area.

-Oh, yeah.

-And you get a back garden with these as well.

-That's the key thing.

A lot of the locals really love the space standards

and the private amenity space.

'The bungalows originally had two or three bedrooms

'and spacious family bathrooms.

'I was keen to see how they looked when redeveloped.'

-There we are.

-Wow!

That's incredible. What a transformation.

-It's certainly a bit different from the one you've just come from.

-Yeah.

It shows what a bit of imagination can do.

Yeah, and it feels so big and airy and light.

'The former airman's family quarters had been

'transformed into a modern family home.

'The hope was to renovate 250 others.

'The current planning laws would make it impossible to build

'this many new homes in the Oxfordshire countryside.'

How sure can you be that this collection of buildings will

actually form a warm and friendly community?

Well, I think the key thing here is the space

they have, the living areas and the light impression they have

in their living environments,

and actually, a community is formation of people,

not a formation of buildings, at the end of the day.

It just takes a bit of vision

to think about how you can go about those things.

Today, 15 months on from our last visit to Upper Heyford,

Paul Silver is back on site

and has good news for the future of the development.

Since 2011, we've been able to show the demonstrator bungalows to

the planners and the wider community and get their feedback.

And I'm pleased to report, that exercise has been very successful.

Paul has now been granted planning permission to refurbish

all 250 bungalows and 70 two-storey houses on the site.

Back in 2011, this was really just a vision and a dream on a piece of

paper, I guess, that we could be able to refurbish all of these houses.

And now, since we've got our planning consent, we are in a position

where we can roll up our sleeves and get on with the project. So we are really excited.

It is expected building work will start in the next few months.

And in the spirit of creating a community for future

generations, the developers are also planning to turn

the Grade II listed officers' mess into a new school.

Head teacher David Castle is already on board and it's hoped doors will open in September 2012.

It's a fantastic building

which has been used as an RAF and US Air Force officers' mess building

and has got some incredible spaces in it which will be amazing

to bring into use for teaching and learning as libraries, as assembly halls.

But also with the potential to create exciting classroom

spaces as well.

The facilities we're going to develop in this building and the sports

and creative centre will be used by the wider community

and bring real benefits.

Earlier in the programme, we met Christina and Karl Yau,

a couple who'd found a simply heavenly derelict building

they hoped one day they'd call home.

They started off full of hope

but the scale of the renovation was surely enough to test anyone's faith.

Here I am back in Hampshire to see how Christina

and Karl have been getting on.

From the outside, it looks absolutely beautiful, very smart.

Chapels and churches, they don't convert to homes easily so I'm

really curious to see inside and see how they've tackled this challenge.

KNOCK AT DOOR

Hello. Good to see you again, Christina. How are you?

-I'm very well. Thank you.

-Karl, good to see you.

This looks incredible from the outside.

-I'm so excited to see what's changed inside. Can we have a look?

-Certainly can.

This is the kitchen.

This is beyond belief.

This is a world away from that big wooden shed you bought.

This is your main living area, your open plan for the kitchen diner

it's good ceiling height. Did you have to dig down in the floor?

When we actually took the floor out, we realised there was

a lot of space underneath so there was nearly half a metre of space.

So as we dug down,

we just didn't bring it up massively, we just dug deeper.

The organ was here before.

It was quite spectacular, but it couldn't stay.

It just took up too much space.

But you did have an intention to kind of recycle as much of it

-as possible. Did that happen?

-Yeah.

We've recycled quite a lot of that, haven't we?

Yeah, we've used as much as we can.

So the organ itself,

we couldn't make any use of the pipes in general terms,

so we donated those to a local artist,

who's come up with a really interesting design on them.

He's given us one as a present,

but he's actually got them showing in Sotheby's soon,

so that's really interesting,

-and we love the fact that's part of our church.

-Fantastic.

So you been incredibly resourceful,

using as much of the original material here as possible.

There is, of course, one big new feature that catches my eye,

and that's the stairs. Tell me about them.

-They were our extravagance, really, weren't they?

-Yeah.

I kind of fell in love with a solid oak one.

We decided we couldn't afford it.

And then I found this one,

which kind of worked really well with the windows,

because there's the black and the little monkey-tail features

and stuff on the windows,

and it kind of just seemed to blend in with the log burner,

and it was slightly cheaper -

not a lot, but that's how I justified it to Karl.

Well, the clever bit here,

the very new part to this building is upstairs, isn't it?

-Can we go and have a look?

-Yes, we certainly can.

Great. Up your lovely staircase.

So this is your master bedroom. It's lovely.

It is en suite, you've got the curved wall,

and the floors, these look like old timbers. Are these recycled again?

Yeah, this was the downstairs floor. It was all downstairs.

So we did two of the bedrooms with it,

with anything that was actually worth using.

Tell me about how you laid everything out.

It's so hard to visualise a space that's thin air, just doesn't exist.

We've got this at this end, with the en suite.

We've got a family bathroom.

We have a room which is above the utility room,

that was never going to be there.

It's not really big enough to be a bedroom, although our tiny,

little five-year-old manages to fit in it at the moment.

So we have got rooms for each of the children,

which we never thought we were going to have.

What problems did you come up against? What was most difficult?

Because you didn't know what was ahead of you.

You were about to strip the building back and you didn't know

-whether it would be rotten or what you would find.

-We had dry rot,

wet rot, woodworm, and then most of the roof needed replacing,

in hindsight. We started just expecting to replace little bits,

and ended up having to replace nearly everything.

Christina and Karl bought the church for £170,000,

and had an initial renovation budget of 180,000.

That had spiralled by another £70,000,

bringing it to a total of 420.

But was it money well spent?

We ended up getting a valuation a couple of weeks ago,

and they've said it's worth around 750,000.

So spending that extra money actually puts it in that price bracket.

Crikey. Well, look. What a success story. It's phenomenal.

Because you had the bravery, because you wanted to do it really well,

because you planned it so carefully, but an incredible outcome.

-Really well done, guys. It's a very special home.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

This really is quite a home to behold.

I mean, this was a derelict church. It was rotting.

Who knows how many more years it would have stood here

until Christina and Karl took it on. And they have done a brilliant job.

It is so hard to carry out a renovation like this,

to make a home, but also keep the original character of the building,

of the chapel. But that's what they've done.

It is spectacular,

and it's going to be a wonderful family home for many years to come.

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