Click here to see if empty homes could become social houses

Boris Johnson's mayoral administration has not started well: he has lost two of his top men within weeks, first his political adviser, James McGrath, then his deputy, Ray Lewis.

However, Boris, right, is in the news this week for some good old-fashioned policies. On Tuesday, at the launch of English Heritage's Heritage at Risk register, Boris unveiled a £60million rescue package to bring long-term empty homes in London back into use as affordable homes. The register gives details of listed buildings at risk of being lost through neglect, and the new funding will be used to bring such abandoned properties back into residential use. At present there are 84,000 empty homes in London.

The news was welcomed by the Empty Homes Agency . “With the credit crunch causing housebuilders to down tools, this is a sensible and timely way of creating more homes,” said David Ireland, its chief executive.

It has been a week of politicians championing the plight of the empty home. At the Institute for Fiscal Studies annual lecture on Monday, Vincent Cable, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said that social landlords should be allowed to buy houses that were unsellable in the current depressed housing market. He claimed that the Government had set aside a tiny sum - £200 million - for housing stock, which would buy as few as 1,500 homes. He challenged the Government to buy on a larger scale by allowing social landlords to buy empty properties at a heavy discount. The amount of social housing had been massively reduced in the past 20 years by the “right to buy”, he said, and this was a chance to replenish that stock.

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