Friday 24 June 2011

Let's Talk Numbers - the Huge Cost of 'Managed Decline'

Madryn Street - some of Liverpool's 2191 houses slated for demolition.
It costs as much to decommission and demolish one of these houses as it does to refurbish it.
A few figures for you - it costs Liverpool Council, on average, about £1,700 to 'tin-up' a property. In large clearance areas this means that nearly £1.5m can be spent simply on decommissioning housing stock. In figures obtained from Liverpool Council, the total cost of boarding up houses in Wavertree came to £1,719,916. In Stanley Park the figure was £1,734,524. In addition to this, demolition costs upwards of £20,000 per house, so, in one of these areas nearly £25m would be needed to empty and flatten the housing stock. Add to that the economic impact of decanting neighbourhoods. Local shops and businesses are forced to close through lack of custom, and adjacent areas are blighted by their proximity to the tinned-up or demolished streets. The greatest cost, however, is the social impact of fragmenting long-established communities.

SAVE has now had a quote for a complete renovation and eco-refit of 21 Madryn Street - £25k. This comes to about the same as tinning-up and demolition.

A recent Freedom of Information Request to the council has revealed that it is currently holding 2191 empty homes which were acquired for demolition.

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