UK Proposal to Turn Derelict Buildings into Public Housing

Britain’s Deputy PM has proposed a law that would allow local councils to move families into any building that had sat empty for a year or more, and to keep the buildings in use as council housing for seven years. Some depressed UK cities have tens of thousands of buildings sitting empty, used as shooting galleries or flophouses. The objective is to persuade owners in these circumstances to pass the responsibility for bringing the property back into housing use to the local authority. Of course, we want this to be with their consent, but where that consent is not forthcoming we do not apologise for granting local authorities powers to secure occupation without the need to obtain consent — via Boing Boing