What if one policy move could help grow the economy, deliver homes, improve community cohesion, and boost the fight against climate change and biodiversity loss?
That’s the opportunity presented by every empty building in the UK. There are currently a lot of these, especially in challenged sectors such as office and retail - you’ve probably seen many examples yourself near your workplace or on your local High Street. The office vacancy rate across the UK’s ‘big nine’ regional cities was 10% in the third quarter of this year, while it’s predicted that that over 17,300 shops will close in 2025 costing 200,000 jobs.
Every empty building presents a chance to revitalise neighbourhoods and communities by means of upgrading and adapting them for productive new use. The Government’s statutory advisor on heritage, Historic England, estimates that repurposing and repairing vacant historic buildings across England could provide up to 670,000 new homes. Historic buildings are of course just part of what’s available and turning such structures into homes is just one example of what can be done.
The alternative and currently dominant scenario – demolishing them and replacing them with new buildings of steel and concrete – worsens climate change. Almost two-thirds of all waste produced in the UK (63 million tonnes) is construction and demolition waste and the emissions caused by building new, known in the industry as ‘embodied carbon’, equates to more than 64 million tonnes of CO₂ every year in Britain, more than the emissions from aviation and shipping combined, according to the Commons Environmental Audit Committee.
Labour has admirably committed to creating a circular economy yet the construction sector – a huge industry contributing 7% of the country's GDP – ploughs on in linear fashion, wastefully disposing of the old and replacing with the new. No surprise given that our VAT system charges 20% on refurbishment work and 0% on other forms of construction such as new build housing.
Is it any wonder, given our perverse system of VAT, which charges 20 per cent on most refurbishment work and a rate of zero on much new-build construction, including housing?
The status quo doesn’t just damage the environment. It holds back a potential economic transition which could, through the renewal of existing buildings, deliver homes, create jobs, regenerate High Streets, and make working in this industry truly appealing to the emerging generation.
So how do we change the status quo? By persuading Government to make retrofit simpler and more profitable. That’s the mission of Don’t Waste Buildings, a highly active voluntary group which hosts case study tours, talks, events, and meetings with MPs, and has grown to almost 2,100 members, demonstrating a groundswell of industry support.
The good news is that much of what the Government is already doing is going in the right direction and this momentum can be harnessed. DEFRA has created a Circular Economy Taskforce which is examining the transformation required in construction. MHCLG has launched the Pride in Place programme, a £5 billion initiative which will allow local communities to transform disused department stores or empty office blocks into new health centres or housing. Most significantly of all, the £13.2 billion Warm Homes Plan undertaken by DESNZ will turbocharge the retrofit economy, unlocking precisely the skills and capacity in SME businesses we need to achieve adaptive reuse at scale.
Building on these initiatives, the Government now needs to introduce the right business-friendly incentives for retaining and transforming existing buildings. That way the private sector will step up, the tipping point will be reached, and the multiple benefits of recycling buildings will be realised.
