Greater Manchester Empty Homes Knowledge Transfer Partnership

There are currently 25,000 privately owned long-term empty homes in Greater Manchester and at the same time a shortage of affordable housing in the region.

To help address this problem, SHUSU, working in partnership with Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council and the nine other Greater Manchester authorities, looked at how to engage more effectively with empty home owners to help them return their properties back into use. Approaching the issue from a community engagement perspective, the study aimed to understand the reasons homes are left empty and the barriers preventing owners returning their properties back into use.

This research has fed into an engagement strategy to help target and tailor support to empty home owners in Greater Manchester which included exploring the role of social media as a service delivery platform.

Principal Investigators and Co-investigators: Dr Lisa Scullion, Professor Philip Brown, Marie Griffiths, Aisling McCourt.

Partners: Salford Business School, Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council, Association of Greater Manchester Authorities.

Funder: InnovateUK, DCLG.