Labour risks abject housing failure - solution is right under their noses

One of Labour's flagship pledges was to build 1.5million homes during this Parliament. That's 300,000 a year. It looked ambitious, and it was. Up to June, 186,600 new homes were delivered - 8% fewer than the previous year. The "flagship" faces even choppier waters as it tries to navigate inherited trends: a turgid planning system and a shortage of skilled construction workers derived from successive governments prioritising low-grade degrees ahead of vocational courses.

Nevertheless, Labour's house-building directive continues. It's fire-up the bulldozers, clear swathes of greenfield and hope that voters mistake activity for achievement. What people will see instead is environmental destruction, economic inefficiency and short-sightedness. But a better, greener and cheaper answer is hiding in plain sight - Britain's scandalous stock of empty homes.

Official statistics suggest almost half of the 1.5million housing target could be achieved without building a single new house, as some 676,000 homes stand empty - at least 260,000 vacant long-term.

Rotting terraces, boarded-up semis and empty retail units can become eyesores, dragging down entire neighbourhoods and attracting antisocial behaviour. At the same time, at least 354,000 people in England are homeless, and 1.33million UK households languish on housing waiting lists - a mismatch between supply and demand.

It's also ruinously expensive to ignore. Councils in England alone spent £2.29billion on temporary accommodation in 2023/24.

These hostels and B&Bs are often cramped and stressful. Imagine if even half of that sum were redirected into reviving derelict homes to offer permanent, decent housing that prevents homelessness rather than merely storing it up.

The environmental case against new builds is also weighty: concrete, steel and brick manufacture plus transportation generate a vast amount of emissions.

Labour's 300,000-homes-a-year new homes target could blow a hole through the country's climate commitments, when bringing empty homes back into use could mean 50-80% fewer emissions and enable retrofitted energy-saving technologies for greener homes in the long term.

So why isn't Labour changing course or, indeed, the opposition calling for it?

Shockingly, the last serious effort on empty homes was more than a decade ago, under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. Since then, numbers have crept up again, even as waiting lists lengthen.

Ironically, some councils now profit from taxing owners of empty properties. Others offer grants to would-be rescuers of derelict properties, but these are poorly publicised, bureaucratic or too meagre to make a difference.

Worse still, the Government's current approach fails to recognise that empty homes are a win-win opportunity - rejuvenating run-down areas, cutting carbon and offering families a route to buy.

My vision is for councils to partner with schemes that turn tenants into sole owners through "rent-to-own" models and not shared ownership, which makes it harder for occupants to own their home entirely.

Families can move into a property immediately, pay affordable rent, steadily grow the deposit they'll need to buy and invest in looking after their new home.

Crucially, they lock in a purchase price from the outset, that protects them from rent inflation, while landlords gain a guaranteed future sale, plus rent with no void periods in the meantime, no maintenance costs, and a clean, ethical exit strategy avoiding any risk of chain collapse.

For tenants, the cost of ownership is often comparable to renting, especially once council tax and new landlord levies are passed on. The difference is that rent-to-own creates stability and a pathway to ownership, rather than leaving families at the mercy of landlords and shifting tax rules.

The model is already proven - in the US rent-to-own schemes have helped thousands of families achieve ownership.

As part of a national empty homes' strategy, it could transform Britain's housing landscape. Ordinary families would benefit from ownership and derelict properties would be brought back to life.

New homes will always be required, but unless the UK tackles the challenge of wasted stock, Labour's housing pledge risks abject failure. Meanwhile, the fastest, cheapest and most sustainable way to get there is under ministers' noses.

• Sheila Smith is the Managing Director of rent-to-own company BeHomed