Andrew and Catherine Ingram Britain's Empty Homes

Across the country, empty buildings that could be homes

are just waiting to be brought back into use.

I'll be finding out what you need to do to rescue a house for yourself.

And I'll be finding out about our housing stock, our heritage

and why we should be both reinventing and preserving

Britain's empty homes.

Across Britain there are thousands of empty properties.

But it doesn't have to be the case.

Empty properties can put off potential buyers,

seeming too derelict and a bit daunting.

But where many see a lost cause, others see a great opportunity,

and it's those people who are leading the battle

to breathe new life back into our old buildings.

Today, the newlyweds who fell in love with an empty house,

but have fallen out of love with the renovation project.

You've had problems with the builder?

Unfortunately, yes, it's not gone smoothly in here.

We'll meet an author and his wife

who have created a fantastic family home.

Every window came out, every door frame.

And we meet the property detectives who track down the owners,

to breathe new life into blighted neighbourhoods.

There's been a host of problems - anti-social behaviour,

squatters having to be removed.

Newlyweds Andrew and Catherine Ingram recently bought

this early 1900s house in Bognor Regis, West Sussex.

The house was empty for almost a year, practically untouched.

When they clapped eyes on it, it was love at first sight.

We pulled up outside and walked up the driveway,

and I just knew it was the right property.

In this sought-after location, prices can run into the millions.

A&E crew member Andrew and staff nurse Catherine

snapped it up for £425,000.

It had been on at 465,

but luckily we could get it at that price,

which we thought was a bargain - it IS a bargain.

They want to update the interior whilst maintaining its original character.

If we keep the mix between the authentic, with the twist of modern,

it's going to be an amazing house, and do it justice.

Andrew and Catherine have a tight renovation budget of £70,000.

After a fall-out with one builder,

they're determined to keep costs down.

It'll be re-roofed, re-plumbed, re-electricked.

The garden will eventually be done, that's the last thing on our list.

-We're hoping to move in in six months.

-If all goes well.

'I'm meeting up with the couple to find out more.'

-My wife, Catherine.

-Nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you.

-Right...

-Yes, exactly! This is it!

-Yes! This was the third house we saw,

and I just fell in love with it - we went inside, and it was amazing.

-We should go and have a look. Lead the way.

-Thank you.

Wow! So, this is a lovely, big room. This is your main reception room?

Yes. I presume it was a dining room come front room at one stage.

-Fantastic.

-Yes, it's triple aspect, going round to the side there.

-And the proper old beams really stand out.

-Yes, they are superb.

-Are these things you want to bring out?

-Oh, totally.

I want to enhance the existing woodwork, not over-modernise it

but keep a blend between the authentic arts and crafts of the period

with obviously modern fixtures and fittings.

How much are you planning to do yourselves?

Do you both want to get stuck in, with your full-time jobs?

-You've been awake all night as a staff nurse...

-That's right.

-How much can you do yourselves?

-Within reason, you know,

lumping and lifting of stuff, clearing of rubble.

But the electricians, plumbers etc, we let them get on.

Will you project manage it yourself?

It can seem a lot of money to get someone to manage it,

but in terms of keeping it on schedule and on track

and on budget, it can be money well-spent - have you considered it?

Yes and no. I am very fussy,

and would like to check every detail myself,

-so, within reason, we might as well do it ourselves.

-Right.

I'm keen to see what building work has been done in the house so far.

-The kitchen is more of a building site...

-It looks like that, sure.

'After a fall-out with their builder,

'things have ground to a halt.'

-We were too keen, we wanted to get on and see something happen.

-Yeah.

But it's not gone smoothly in here.

We take a look round the rest of the property.

Wow! This...is huge!

That's a massive bedroom.

-Huge bedroom.

-Then we come out into... What is this exactly?

-This is the en-suite sun room.

-The en-suite sun room!

Another quirky feature of such a characterful house.

-My yoga spot.

-Yoga spot. So, this will be the master bedroom.

-Yes.

-With a great fireplace. And overall, your main worries,

will it come down to money?

Ultimately everything boils down to money, that's the biggest constraint

on any desire or vision you have for anything, really.

-Yes, money - and also, as you said, getting the right builder.

-Mmm.

-I'm glad you're worried about it as well!

-I hide it!

I think it would be useful to meet a couple who have been through this.

They've been through the stress, come out with a completed property,

and I think they'll have loads of advice for you on what lies ahead.

-OK.

-How does that sound?

-That sounds good.

-Definitely.

-Up for it?

-Yep.

-Yeah, definitely.

-Great. Let's go.

Well, what an exciting house -

Andrew and Catherine are clearly smitten with it.

For me, the budget seems a bit tight.

Also, they both have very busy jobs,

they're healthcare professionals, working shifts and nights -

will they be around enough to project-manage this?

They've had one setback with a builder,

they can't afford any more,

so fingers crossed on that front.

But they'll be meeting a couple who have overcome similar challenges,

all to create their dream home.

Not every empty home has someone prepared to come to the rescue.

That job often lies with our empty property officers.

Jason Hall's beat is Richmond-upon-Thames.

Richmond is an affluent area,

where houses tend to fetch between £500,000 and £10 million -

not a place where you might expect many vacant properties.

But at present, Jason has over 150 empties on his books.

It seems crazy that people would leave them empty,

with the risk of squatters breaking in, damage done, and loss of value.

It never ceases to amaze me.

Jason has been campaigning to save this building for three years.

Built in the late 1800s, this huge house and industrial unit

had been empty for over 20 years.

The plot itself is potentially worth as much as £1 million.

The previous owner kept it mainly to house two classic cars.

He had let it get into a really poor condition.

Due to all the problems we'd found, we were looking to take possession.

Jason struggled for a long time to find the owner, and inevitably,

the building became of concern to the community.

In recent years, it's quite serious, we've had squatters several times.

Basically, you know, it was just overrun and wild.

After much pressure from Jason, the place was sold to a local developer,

who is now converting it into two large homes.

Jason's here to meet the developer and the council planning officer

to see how the work is progressing.

We're going to retain the original house, which is this part here.

The extension, added much later, will bring the roof across

and create a completely separate three-bedroom house.

We will preserve the character of the old house on the front facade.

At the rear we'll change it somewhat to meet today's requirements.

-So it will be a modern, contemporary house on the inside...

-Yep.

..but the original features on the outside.

The building was not listed, but it is in a landmark protection area,

and the council were keen to retain its original character.

It looks like one house, as opposed to two, like the original,

whereas the printworks at the moment looks kind of like an addition.

Preserving the features, the wooden windows and the railings outside,

-it's going to look a stunning building.

-Really impressive.

This is the end of a long campaign by Jason

to get this building back into use, and it looks like it's paid off.

Without Jason chasing around these properties,

they would sit and decline for years and years.

It's not for lack of people trying to track down the owners,

it's their reluctance to actually sell.

It's fantastic to see the property that's been empty for 20 years, and was mainly used as car storage,

it's great to see that it's going to be restored to two family homes.

It's really easy to get excited about tackling an empty home,

but it's never wise to just rush in.

The more ambitious the work is, the more important it is

to thoroughly research everything, from surveyors to sofas.

In Bath, author Joe Abercrombie and his photographer wife Lou

bought this unusual art deco-style property for £400,000.

We were looking for somewhere that we could do some work to,

maybe not as much work as we ended up doing,

but we were looking for a bit of a project.

The house stood empty for nine months after the previous owner passed away,

and the whole building was in need of a full renovation.

It has very old wiring, it had all the lead plumbing still in there,

-so we knew straight away that it would need ripping back to...

-To scratch, yeah.

Every window came out, every door frame, every door, they took up all the floors.

After a year-and-a-half-long building project,

Joe and Lou have transformed it into a strikingly modern family home.

However, the initial renovation budget quickly spiralled.

We started with a ludicrous budget of 150.

By the time we started the build, it had mushroomed to about 420,

and then it did go a bit further, so we probably spent 450, 460.

But we don't know whether we've recouped it.

-We don't know what it's worth.

-We don't know.

-I'd rather not know, in a way!

And throughout this spectacular renovation,

Joe and Lou took on many design challenges together.

We wanted a very modern, contemporary kind of look.

It was really nice to come to a house that was really light.

We could have some real modern touches, but then sort of keep

some of the more art deco features that the house already had.

There's some interesting materials which are very modern in contrast to the Bath stone.

The circular extension's been clad in wood,

and the stainless steel roof

makes it more than just a stone house

which there's a lot of them around here.

The Abercrombies have breathed new life into an empty house,

and now have an amazing family home.

One of the most important design aspects was to be able to entertain,

with the kitchen sitting out looking over this big semi-circular patio.

We have had a few parties and it fitted perfectly.

Everyone was sat out on the lawn, on the patio, milling around in the kitchen.

It's the perfect space for it.

Now, we've witnessed the potential that can be unlocked by renovating an empty property,

but of course restoration can also happen on a much larger scale.

I've come to the Heyford Park in Oxfordshire,

where a whole town is being moulded out of the remains of this disused airbase.

There's been an air strip here since 1916,

and Upper Heyford played a vital role during the two World Wars

as a training base. Following the Second World War,

the site was handed over to the American air force.

Over the years, around 15,000 American servicemen lived and worked

on this 1250 acre site.

But, with the end of the Cold War, the site was decommissioned,

leaving behind hundreds of empty bungalows.

Like many regions of the UK, Oxfordshire desperately needs affordable new homes,

and a developer plans to regenerate this abandoned air base,

creating around a thousand new houses.

I'm meeting the developer, Paul Silver, to find out more.

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

We want to do a phased refurbishment programme.

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

When it's all finished, how many homes will there be here?

Overall there will be 1,100 homes on site.

Such a unique chance to take on these buildings, use them,

not knock them down but bring them back to life.

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

Whatever we leave here will last for future generations.

-I'd love to have a look in one, can we?

-Yes, please, come through.

Please, come through.

It's quite big, isn't it? Is the main living space?

Yes, it's lovely open area.

There's a lot of American, '50s facets to it,

the wooden doors between the kitchen and dining area.

You get a back garden with these as well, don't you?

That's the key thing, actually.

A lot of the locals really love the space standards and private amenity space.

The bungalows originally had two or three bedrooms and spacious family bathrooms.

I'm keen to see how they look when redeveloped.

Wow!

That's incredible! What a transformation.

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

It shows what a little bit of imagination can do.

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

The former airmen's family quarters have been transformed into modern, family homes

and current planning laws would make it almost impossible to build this many of them

in the Oxfordshire countryside.

How sure can you be that this collection of buildings will actually form

a warm and friendly community?

I think the key thing is the space they have, the living areas, the light impression they have

in their living environment, and communities are a formation of people,

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

It just takes a bit of vision on how you can go about those things.

When this base was built, it played a key role in ongoing international tensions.

Now, with Britain in relative peace time, it's playing a key role

in a domestic crisis, providing much-needed housing.

And, with hundreds of former airbases lying empty across the UK,

the work here at Heyford can be held up as an example to local councils and developers,

not just in how to remember these Cold War relics in peace time,

but also how to provide homes for our future.

Earlier in West Sussex I met up with Andrew and Catherine Ingram,

who've started renovations on this unusual house.

After a fallout with one builder, Andrew and Catherine are anxious

about how best to manage this complex renovation.

Now, I'm taking them to meet a couple who've tackled a similar project to give them some guidance.

Right, guys, here we are. This is the house.

It's a little bit older than yours, it's 1920s.

It was empty the best part of two years before Matt and Clare took it on.

Both, I hope, can offer some good advice.

-So, shall we go and say hello?

-Certainly.

Clare Pascoe, an interior designer

and her husband Matt, an electrician, live with their young family in Oving, West Sussex.

In 2009, the Pascoes bought this dilapidated, vacant,

three-bedroom house for £435,000.

The reason the house appealed to us was that it would have been out of our league

had it been fully renovated already.

It was quite dated and run down.

It was very tired, but you could clearly see it was spacious

and could be fantastic.

Clare and Matt were able to draw on their own skills

and experience to complete the build.

Even so, they struggled through a harsh winter

and the birth of their second child to complete the project.

We weren't nervous about doing it, we were quite excited about it.

It was definitely more stressful as time went on

and more of the money got spent, with still plenty of work to do.

Even as an interior designer with 12 years experience,

I still felt the pressure to get in before Christmas.

Normally I'd be advising clients to relax, these are the lead times,

these are the processes and don't try and push the team. I didn't follow my own advice at all!

Despite the pressures of managing their own build, the Pascoes have transformed and extended

this once empty house into a spacious and spectacular home.

All this work was done for under 70 grand.

We've certainly added value to the property.

That wasn't the motive for setting out to refurbish the house.

It was to make a family home that we could bring our children up in,

a lovely garden, village location. It was the whole package.

Hello, Matt, Claire. Hi.

-Can we come in and have a look?

-Yes, come on in.

This renovation may have held different challenges

but it's a similar scale to Andrew and Catherine's place.

-The master bedroom.

-Beautiful.

-Nice colours.

I feel Andrew and Catherine can glean a lot from seeing how two renovation specialists

managed their big construction project.

Wow, look at this, it just opens up as soon as you come around.

What state was this in when you took on the property?

This room didn't exist. This is all extension that we did.

-This was an exterior wall, was it?

-It was.

-All extension, going that way?

-Yes.

This was the old kitchen/diner and that was the living room

and this would of been outside with a very tumbledown conservatory.

How much of this work did you do yourself?

With me, with some friends of mine that work in the industry,

we did all of it, really. I did all the carpentry, the electrics

and kitchen fitting.

We brought in some plasterers and decorators.

From your point of view, how would you advise these guys?

They're both health professionals, not contractors or builders.

How did you go about finding the right people that you trust?

Word of mouth, if you can.

Try and get some recommendations, maybe see some of their work

and try and get somebody you can get on with. It's going to take a while.

It's a long haul and they're under your feet the whole time.

-Yes, communication's important.

-You've got to get on with them.

-Get the right balance.

-Being able to talk.

-Sure.

That's one of my concerns for you two, you're both busy and have full-time jobs

and it's about being there enough.

How important is it to be around if you're a project manager, or, if not

to try and employ someone who can?

It's nice to get involved and know what's happening, to be involved in decisions.

The builders on site will need a quick turnaround.

If there's a problem, they need to move the sink,

if they need to know how far or change something.

-To keep momentum and keep morale, you need to have a quick dialogue, as well.

-That's interesting,

you do need to be around to make those quick decisions?

-Accessible on the phone, at least, really.

-Yeah.

Or have someone who trust to make certain decisions for you.

I don't know if you have an architect or designer working with you,

but it's quite an administrative feat as well. One of you really needs to be on the ball.

Sometimes when you're in the middle of a building project, the floors are up

and the plaster's down, it's difficult to see the way forward.

How useful is it seeing a stage forward? You're dealing with exposed concrete floors,

-and to see a finished project, is lovely.

-It's amazing.

It gives you clarity and forward vision to look around at the space,

they've got balance between living, dining and preparation.

Yes, it's encouraging.

-And it would fit with yours, it's exactly what you're looking for.

-I know.

-It is hopeful, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

-Good, good.

Guys, thank you for that.

-Sharing your house, opening it up to us to have a look around.

-Pleasure.

In Richmond-upon-Thames, empty property officer Jason Hall

devotes his working life to saving abandoned homes.

Today Jason's on his way to see a house which has been

rescued from ruin, thanks to a council grant.

This spacious property was rented long-term by an elderly lady who passed away three years ago.

During this period, the house fell into serious disrepair.

The owner wanted to renovate the building and turn it into three flats

and was able to do this with the help of a £75,000 council grant.

It's the first time I'd been back to this property since the completion of the grant works.

I'm here to have a good look around in and out of the flats,

check all the works were carried out as per schedule and we can sign this one off the books.

-Hello, how are you?

-Good to see you.

I'm looking forward to seeing this.

Come on in.

This is the ground floor flat, we've got a studio flat on the top,

a two-bed flat on the middle floor and then this is the ground floor.

It's a one-bed flat and it's turned out rather nicely.

-It certainly looks a lot different to the last time I came.

-Yes.

Is nice to see the build hasn't lost any of the original features with all the roof detail.

Yes, that's right, we tried to keep as much as we could

because there's some beautiful little features in the property.

-The kitchen.

-Completely new room.

It is, completely new room.

-The old kitchen used to finish kind of here.

-I remember.

And there was a lean-to at the back.

We took the lean-to down and extended the kitchen out.

This is obviously a key room where some of our money was spent

-with the central heating system, kitchen...

-Absolutely.

-Fantastic.

Here's the studio.

We've created a little kitchen over here.

This is now the front room and the tenant is using the back room as his bedroom.

We've got a little bathroom in there. So it's created a fantastic little studio.

-Obviously, they're tenants that are off the council waiting list.

-They are.

The standard of property we're offering them is fantastic, in my opinion,

and it's good to see they're being looked after. It's really good. Excellent. OK.

I think it's fantastic that the council's investing in empty properties like this

so they can put council tenants in them.

I mean, the three tenants in this building were struggling to find accommodation.

The council has enabled this project to be carried out

and made it possible for them to be housed, which is fantastic.

Thanks, mate.

I'm impressed with the property and pleased with the way it's gone

and it's good to see tenants in there and it's all fine.

-I hope to work with you again.

-Brilliant.

-Take care.

-Thanks, Jason. See you.

It's not just my job to deal with empty properties, it's also to bring them back into use.

This has been a good example of bringing a wasted resource back into use

and bringing people off the council housing waiting list.

I think it's fantastic to see it.

Earlier I met Andrew and Catherine Ingram who bought an empty house

in Bognor Regis, but are struggling to find the right builder to do it up.

I took Andrew and Catherine to meet a couple who undertook a similar project with great success.

How do they feel about their renovation now?

Having had a look around, having met Matt and Clare,

what do you think about this place and your own project?

It's really encouraging to see such a fine, finished job.

-It's given me some encouragement.

-Me, too. It's lovely to see a finished product.

To go through some of that advice, first of all, project management.

They were very keen that you should have someone available

to answer calls or be around to make decisions.

-That's something you'll remember?

-Definitely, to a certain extent

and, obviously, communications with the builders concerned.

A combination of being on site as much as possible

and finding the right builder.

Finally, your energy, are you up for this?

It is going to be a bit of a slog.

Seeing that, does it inspire you, does it energise you?

Yes, it's commitment all round.

It's a symbol, basically, of my overall commitment to Catherine.

The commitment to the house and our dream together. Yes, sure.

Nice, having a finished picture in your head when you're struggling.

-Fantastic, and to listen to Clare and to get that hope.

-Mmm.

Clearly, having the vision to see past dereliction is a prerequisite when tackling an empty home.

It seems like Andrew and Catherine have that vision.

Of course, planning and preparation are the key foundation to success,

so hopefully today, they've gleaned enough help and advice to get them on the way.

There will, of course, be challenges ahead

but I've got every confidence that they'll manage to turn the potential of their place

into a dream home.

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