Episode 8 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 the UK's estimated one million empty properties.

-Jeremy.

-Good to see you again.

-Karen.

-Hi.

'In this series,

'I'll be catching up with some of the people who took the plunge and

'staked everything on turning unloved houses

'into bespoke family homes.'

Today, I'll be catching up with a couple from an earlier series.

They took on a 200-year-old cottage

and I'll be seeing how their renovation has gone.

The end result, to have something that's so pleasurable

and easy to live in, it's really great.

We'll also be catching up with the dedicated empty property officers,

whose job it is to turn derelict dwellings back into homes again.

Right.

Again, this looks very different from the last time I was here.

Well done.

And we'll be finding out how a London council has taken

an innovative approach to solve their funding problem.

A year ago, I met Jason and Gail, who had just bought a 220-year-old

cottage in the picturesque village of Southwell in Nottinghamshire.

Well, they were planning a complete renovation,

with Jason tackling many of the jobs himself.

To be honest, I think we fell for it a bit, even with the agent's

photograph on the front of the details.

It was obviously taken on a sunny day

and it did look really nice and classic and cottage-y.

The previous owner had moved into a retirement home

and the house had fallen into disrepair.

So Gail and Jason had planned a total renovation.

You almost felt sorry for the building, because the brickwork

and everything is so lovely at the front and then you've got

this utterly hideous '70s flat-roof extension on the back.

But such a large-scale project was new for both of them.

While Jason had done some renovation work before,

for Gail it was a step into the complete unknown.

I have no experience, no physical, manual skills.

But I do have vision of where we're going to get to.

'When I first met up with Jason and Gail at their cottage,

'I was keen to hear about their plans for the transition

'between the old part of the house and the modern extension.'

So, guys, tell me about your beautiful cottage here.

It was previously empty for over six months

and we're in the process of renovating it.

-Can we go inside and have a look round?

-Absolutely.

Brilliant. Lead the way.

At the time, the house had three bedrooms and a small living area,

but Gail and Jason had big plans for it.

So, we're in the main part of the cottage, the living room.

-That's correct.

-It's beautiful, really cosy size.

Now, where do you start on a project like this?

The first thing we had to do was get the house dried out.

It was absolutely damp, you could smell it as soon as you came in.

So, the first brief was get as much off the walls as you possibly could,

which... Jason has done all the work in here, as you can see.

-Already, the house is drying out.

-What's the grand plan?

What's your vision for the place, what do you want to do with it?

Well, it's a home for life.

It'll be three stages,

so renovating and repairing the old two-up, two-down cottage.

Stage two is an extension, so big, family...a modern kitchen.

So, everything outside of this two-up, two-down

will be modern, new and contemporary.

And we'll be living as a family in that part of the building.

And then we're putting another annexe outside of the house.

A completely separate new build at the north end of the property.

And the wood burner here is temporary?

It's going to help you to dry out the place and give you some warmth

-while you work.

-Yeah.

-Are you on gas here? How does it work?

There's been nothing to the property whatsoever.

We're currently researching all the renewable options,

which we're interested in, apart from the cost.

So tricky, isn't it? Because you're plying all your efforts and energies

into making this a home for life, and all the energy solutions

out there that are perhaps the greenest

do require quite a lot of investment upfront.

I'm curious where this extension would go.

-Shall we go through to the back?

-Yeah, sure.

-After you.

'The cottage was certainly compact on the inside,

'but it was still a massive renovation job to take on.'

Where are we here? What was this on the back of the house?

Well, this was the previous owner's kitchen.

Really small space. This is like a warren of rooms here,

and you've got, I can see, more modern brick there,

so that's an add-on again, is it?

That's the 1970s flat-roof extension coming off

of this very tiny original kitchen.

What is your budget for a project of this size?

It's a big, big project.

We're going to try really hard to stick within the £75,000.

Obviously it doesn't include stage three,

which is a complete new build at the other end of the property.

-Are you living somewhere else at the moment?

-Yeah.

Are you having to pay rent, or...?

-No, we're actually paying another mortgage.

-OK.

But as soon as we can get a bathroom of sorts

and some sort of living conditions, then we will move in.

Where would you like a bit more help?

What is it you're still exploring and thinking about

and developing ideas with?

Well, we've already mentioned the heating and energy efficiency,

and also the transition between old and new.

We're quite adamant... In effect, it'll be two houses,

so you've got old at the front and brand spanking new at the back...

Making sure it's a smooth transition,

but a wow factor at the same time.

Later, we'll see what happened when I took Jason

and Gail to meet Peter Tasker,

someone who had fallen for a detached redbrick house

and completed a lot of the renovation work himself.

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, empty property officer Dave Carter was on the trail of

a case that had blighted a community in north London for far too long.

We're going to visit a property this morning which has been empty

for 15 years and has been subject to vandalism

and accumulations of rubbish.

The three-bedroom, mid-terrace house had lain abandoned for so long,

it had become a cause of concern for the neighbours.

I've lived here 20 years.

A couple of years ago, after the door got boarded up

and it attracted attention, there was a lot of rubbish being dumped

in the front garden, becoming an eyesore.

The back garden was overgrowing, there were foxes around.

Basically, it's been used as a tip.

It's just a shame that it's left the way that it is.

Eventually, Bill lost patience and picked up the phone

to the council, which is where Dave came in.

The background is that there's been a relationship breakdown

between a couple of co-habiting people.

They lost contact with each other

and it's been difficult trying to put them together

so that they can come to some sort of solution to this property.

Dave had made contact with the owners

and informed them that they were at risk of the council using

official powers to take control of the house.

OK, you'll see that we've actually

obtained a compulsory purchase order on this property.

But we've put the notice on the door for the time being.

The inside of the house was just as dilapidated

and dirty as the outside.

And while Dave waited to hear from the owners,

the house remained in an abandoned state.

Today, four years on,

Dave Carter has come back to visit the north London property.

Since he was last here, the fortunes of this house have been completely

turned around, and now Dave is here to meet the developer, Kevin.

-Hi, Kevin. Nice to meet you.

-Good to see you, Dave.

It's a lot different from when I was last here.

There was a huge tree that was blocking all the windows and I'm glad

to see that's gone, so I'm looking forward to seeing what you've done.

OK. Come on.

Before Kevin began the renovation, the lounge was one large,

dilapidated mess.

Oh, it's a lot different in here.

But now the space has been transformed,

dividing the lounge into two homely rooms.

This room, it was just full of pigeon mess, fox droppings, cold, nasty.

-It's just got a warm feeling about it now.

-Definitely.

You've made it a nice, cosy home, as you say.

Previously, the kitchen was on the verge of being swallowed up

by the garden.

But now it's modern, compact and fit for purpose.

So, Kevin, this is the new kitchen. Again, it's a lot different.

Yeah, well, basically there was a boiler here when we got it.

Kevin has completely refitted

and rewired the kitchen to a high standard.

Let's have a look out here.

-Yeah, we can get out the back door now.

-Yeah!

The back garden was once an overgrown jungle, but not any more.

When I came the first time, I came over two garden fences

-and I took this photo from there.

-That's unbelievable, that.

It was the only way I could get in to have a look.

And the door was wide open.

That was the four-legged tenant.

The house has been completely overhauled from top to bottom,

including the grotty upstairs bathroom.

So, this is the bathroom.

Right!

Again, this looks very different from the last time I was here.

It really was nasty, not very functional

and very dated.

You've done it well. Yeah, well done.

So, Kevin, thanks for showing me around.

I'm really pleased that we've finally got somebody living there

after all these years of trying to track the owner down

-and get the work done.

-You're very welcome.

-I'm just glad we've got a nice place, some nice people living there. It's great.

-Brilliant.

Cheers, Dave. All the best. Bye.

It's another property off Dave's books,

and another one of Britain's empty homes brought back into use.

Breathing new life back into an empty property can be

a difficult and delicate balancing act, particularly if

you're squeezing a renovation around the demands of work and family life.

But when you speak to people who have come through it to create

their perfect home, suddenly all that effort makes perfect sense.

Barbara Charton had spotted this disused and uncared-for house

in Cambridgeshire, and she was instantly captivated by it.

There was no For Sale sign, but it was clearly empty,

clearly in very poor condition, the garden was horrendously overgrown.

And we looked round the house, and as we went room to room,

every room seemed to have something really special.

There was just so much in it that we just thought,

"Well, we just have to have this place."

Barbara spent £485,000 buying the house,

and made the decision to carry out a slow renovation

so the property could guide the rebuild.

It's got a character of its own,

so you're not going to come into a place like this and transform it.

You've got to live here for a while and get the feeling of what works.

Really, to make the house what it wants to be,

rather than what you want it to be.

The fact that the house is a listed building added another dimension

to the renovation.

Taking on a place like this,

one of the things to take on board is that you are going to be dealing

with the listed building people in the council.

In our case, because it's two-star with English Heritage as well.

It can be very frustrating when you want to do something

and there's always a three-month wait or a six-month wait before

you can put it through the planning and the listed building approval.

The previous tenant had refused to carry out any refurbishment work,

which left many of the original features intact.

It was vital to keep as much of the original in place as possible,

so wherever we've been able to, we've reused,

recycled the original fixtures and fittings.

The Chartons spent £60,000 on the renovation

and firmly believe they've gotten more out of living there

then they put in.

All in all, this project took over our lives for the best part of nine years.

But I can't say I regret it.

A lot of the pleasure we get out of this place

is seeing all the little things that we've done.

Living here is a real pleasure.

Looking at what we've achieved and what we've built

and what we've grown, it makes the experience of living in the house

that much more rewarding and enriching.

Earlier, we met Jason and Gail,

who had spent £200,000 on a 200-year-old abandoned cottage.

They planned to project manage the large-scale renovation,

despite minimal experience of such a big job.

I have no experience, no physical, manual skills.

But I do have vision of where we're going to get to.

To help Jason and Gail, I took them to meet the Taskers,

a couple who had undertaken a major project

and completed much of the work themselves.

When interior designer Peter Tasker and his wife Vicky laid eyes

on this redbrick Victorian detached house, it had sat empty

and on the market for more than a year.

The front of the house was what first drew us to it,

because there were so many nice architectural features.

But then, the inside was quite a different story.

Yes, very damp and there were lots of cracks everywhere.

The couple bought the house in 2005 for £300,000

and to save money, they lived in the property

whilst work was ongoing.

Well, we got the keys, and then we literally all moved in

and started working.

Yeah, we piled all our possessions in this room

and started painting throughout.

Impressively, Peter has done most of the work himself,

only calling in the professionals for the specialist jobs.

We wouldn't have been able to do the project without

basically deciding we were going to do the work ourselves.

We dug out the floor, we mixed the gobo...

-I mean, we did all of that, didn't we?

-Yeah.

And for those who don't know, gobo is concrete,

and these two clearly know their stuff.

They had some great ideas and inspiration for Gail and Jason.

-It's quite an extension, isn't it?

-Wow.

Yeah. Absolutely.

-It's a fantastic space.

-Yeah.

So, it strikes me as something quite similar to your plans,

in that it's extending out the back, it's getting that width

and that one big, open-plan space.

As soon as you walk in, you feel it's cosy.

And the light, have you thought about where you'd bring light in,

or how you would use windows in your extension?

Seeing the amount of natural light you've managed to bring in here,

it's something we're going to maybe pay a bit more attention to

before we make any big decisions on that,

because it is really impressive and it helps to set the whole room off

with so much natural light. It's lovely.

I love this, I think it's an amazing space.

As you said, it really does have that wow factor.

But, I think we should also look around a bit further,

-so shall we pop to the front of the house?

-Yes.

Peter and his wife carried out

a complete renovation from the ground up,

creating a truly stunning family home.

Right, this is your front sitting room.

Huge project, it's a big house, what did you budget for that?

We budgeted about 40,000, initially.

As the project has taken more and more time,

obviously we've eaten into that,

-but we seem to be pretty much on budget.

-Really?

-Yeah.

How much of it was spent on the extension, as a proportion of that?

I think the whole extension,

just the infrastructure of getting it built,

was about 15,000.

It's encouraging you can add on such a big space

like you have for that kind of budget.

When you first moved in, did you have a clear idea that

you were going to keep the old part of the house very much separate,

or did you feel that you wanted to integrate?

Well, we always quite liked the idea of eclectic,

in the sense that you may have old pieces and old bits,

and then you walk into the new,

but you've still got old elements there.

I think here, it's quite unapologetic, quite honest...

You just go from quite new to a bit older.

You don't have to feel that you have to sort of...

-Stage it.

-Yes, exactly.

We've got a 200-year-old cottage

and it's going to... We can't modernise it,

we don't want to modernise it...

I feel quite comfortable with it, don't you?

The change in between the two.

I think it's quite nice that you've got effectively two houses.

Peter, thank you for showing us around.

Amazing to see that kitchen,

and how well also the rest of the house works with it,

so it's been really great, and I hope it's been really useful.

-Absolutely, yeah.

-Fantastic.

-Thank you very much.

Later on, I'll catch up with Gail and Jason to see

if everything they've learned helped them to put the plans

for their large-scale renovation into practice.

From countryside to town,

many areas of the UK can be affected by the problems of abandoned homes.

Over a year ago I was in east London,

where a stalled regeneration project had led to run-down,

vandalised houses and an influx of squatters.

John McCollin, a senior project manager from Newham Council,

talked me through the impact this had on the community.

At its height, the council had to carry out a programme of 120

or so squatting and repossession cases.

And how long were these properties going to be empty for?

Was there a problem with the funds coming through?

Well, what actually happened was that due to the slowdown

in the economic climate, that meant that the phase programme in which

the regeneration was due to take place actually got delayed further.

Empty properties, they take a lot of money to keep them secure,

they're a blight on the neighbourhood and ultimately

no-one is living in them. So you came up with a new approach.

What was that? What did you do?

We entered into a contract with a private company,

whereby we leased a number of properties to the private contractor.

The private contractor was then required to refurbish these units

and find tenants to move into the properties,

so that they became occupied and again started to regenerate the area.

So the council still owns the properties but you leased them out

to a private company, they refurbished them

at no cost to you, and then leased them out to tenants?

Seems like it works very well for you.

This has been a real success story for Newham.

We've now put something like 193 properties back into purposeful use,

which would otherwise have been empty for at least another five years.

John invited me to take a look at one of the properties

that had already been renovated.

The house was still boarded up for security reasons,

but it was ready and waiting for a family to move in.

Oh, wow. So here we are. It's a big room.

Actually, a pretty big place overall, isn't it?

This is a four-bedroom house. As you can see, it's fully refurbished,

-fully redecorated throughout.

-Wow.

New bathroom fixtures, all the kitchen fixtures, new boiler,

everything's gone in.

It's just ready now for a family to come and move in.

So how does this make you feel when you come and see this?

It's very satisfying.

The first step of the programme was almost complete,

but a key element was missing - people, to bring life

into these houses and back to the area.

Today, one year on, the shutters have come off

and more tenants have now moved in, creating a thriving community.

Through their partnership with the developers Tando,

Newham Council have brought 47 more properties into use

and housed 240 families, including Terry Curran and his family.

A few years ago, they was derelict. I mean, they've done them all up,

they've done everything to them, new windows, everything.

The inside's completely refurbished.

Having spent his whole life in the borough,

Terry can clearly see the benefits of the regeneration.

If it's all run down and that, it just, like, encourages crime,

people breaking in and things like that, yeah, when they were empty.

But now they've all been done up, families have moved into them.

There's more of a community feeling round here than what there was.

Everyone's a lot happier. Everything's fine.

John McCollin from Newham Council is still managing the project.

It's a success story for Newham, both in terms of the revenue

that we're now saving in terms of the properties being empty.

Also the loss of council tax revenue.

Small businesses have started to revitalise

because they're getting more business through the local residents,

so we're quite proud of what we've been able to achieve to date.

When I first met Jason and Gail,

they had taken on an exciting project

in this 200-year-old derelict cottage.

They wanted to update the 1970s extension, yet keep the feel

and features of the original building.

Well, here I am back in Southwell a year after my first visit.

Now, this was a really ambitious project for Jason and Gail,

but it seems, from first glance, things have gone really well.

This looks incredible and I can't wait to see inside.

-Joe, hi.

-Jason, how are you doing?

-Nice to see you again.

Good to see you. This looks incredible.

-As you approach, everything is so clean and so neat, beautiful.

-Yep.

It has all been repointed, with line-based pointing and yeah,

it's made a real difference.

-The little porch that was here before has gone.

-Correct.

I took it down one Sunday morning

and straightaway I thought it actually makes the house

look a lot bigger and just a much nicer front elevation.

-That's right, it's back to its original, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-Shall we have a look inside?

-Certainly. Come on.

-Come on in.

-Hey. Look at this. This is very homely.

And a stove, very welcome on a cold day!

All this actually runs all the hot water

-and all the under-floor heating.

-Does it?

-Yeah.

-So you've got a back boiler on there?

-Er... It's...

What it is, it goes through to a thermal store

at the back of the house, and it's kind of future-proofed

as well, which means we can slot some solar thermal

into it, eventually.

Last time you stripped all the plaster back off the walls,

you were trying to dry out the house. What happened next?

-How did it work?

-It dried out very quickly, in actual fact.

Took all the old concrete-based mortar on most of the walls

in the house and, after we spent a few weeks taking that off,

you could literally see the moisture coming out of the walls

and the windows were steamed up for a number of weeks

and that's purely moisture that had been trapped in the brickwork.

Another thing was this floor,

very old-fashioned quarry-tile floor. Actually, as you see now,

it's dry as a bone, working fantastically, because it can breathe.

Before there was a vinyl-based covering on that they'd tried

to keep damp down in.

-Since you've re-plastered, you haven't had any problems?

-No.

Not at all. This is lime-based plaster.

So it's designed to be able to breathe with the building.

Great! So often on the programme we've talked about using

traditional methods with traditional buildings.

It's exactly what you've done here,

lime mortar on the outside, lime plaster on the inside.

It's breathing nicely and you haven't had any problems.

No, it's worked really, really well,

so traditional methods have won through.

What about next door?

-You were thinking about going a bit more modern. Have you?

-We have.

I'll let you judge, so if you're ready, we'll go through

-and have a look.

-OK, let's do it.

Wow. So this is...

This is mind-blowingly different. This is incredible.

It is quite different.

Before, it was very compartmentalised.

All these little rooms. It's amazing what you can do when you've got the vision

-to ignore those walls and just open it all up.

-Yeah.

I think it's something not to be scared of really, let yourself

go with it, imagining how you want it to be and see if it can do it.

Yeah. When we went to see Peter Tasker before,

you both seemed quite struck at how it was a traditional house and,

in many ways, quite traditional in how it had been laid out,

but as soon as you went to the back, it opened up and was very modern.

You quite liked that. Has that influenced this?

Definitely.

I think one of the things we took away from that

was the importance of natural light, hence we've put in

very large bi-fold doors

-and obviously the windows at the side.

-Fantastic.

I'm pleased it's worked out so well.

You've added to your upstairs with the extension as well?

-Can we go and take a look?

-Yeah. Let's go and have a look upstairs.

Gail and Jason have lovingly revived the bedrooms on the first floor.

And they've added another room above the extension.

-Wow. This is great. This is your master bedroom?

-Correct.

When I first saw the bedrooms I was sort of worried

they might feel too small when they were done, but they don't.

-You must be very happy.

-They're really good-sized bedrooms,

They're actually larger than they felt originally.

This is a six-foot bed in here and you've still got plenty of room.

Originally you wanted to be very hands-on with this project.

-Is that how it worked out?

-No, it didn't work out like that.

A lot of the work on this project was quite skilled work.

And, as it turned out,

I could fulfil a much more effective role as a project manager

-than I could getting involved and getting in people's way.

-I see.

-So you were keeping it as efficient as possible?

-Yeah.

Yeah. As efficient as it could be.

These projects, of course, are expensive.

You were hoping to do stages one and two,

which was the old cottage and the new extension, for £75,000.

-How did it work out?

-We've gone over, I would say, by about 25,000.

A lot of it was coming down to doing things the right way.

There could've been shortcuts, but we've done it the right way

and hopefully this building can look after itself for a long time to come.

-So, no regrets?

-No, no, no. A few grey hairs, but...

THEY LAUGH

Well, I think Jason and Gail have been really sensible

by sticking to what they do best.

Jason became the project manager, which such a big project needed,

and left the major jobs to the professionals.

And it's worked out.

It's a stunning house and they now have an absolutely brilliant home

with all its original features intact.

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