16,000 potential homes in London’s empty garages

Property crowd funding platform Property Partner have suggested that the 22,000 empty council-owned garages in London could be turned into 16,000 one bed flats.

A freedom of information request to London’s 32 councils returned figures showing that 24 of them own a total of 53,640 lock-up garages in the capital - with 41 per cent of them either empty or in need of repair.

The researchers have claimed that, if the garages were to be replaced by flats, 16,111 one-bed single-storey apartments could be delivered to combat the housing crisis.

Of particular notice, Ealing has 1,480 (74 per cent) of its garages lying empty, followed by Havering 1,469 (72 per cent), Brent 1,234 (71 per cent) and Enfield 2,008 (70 per cent).

Dan Gandesha, CEO at Property Partner, said: "This is just a snapshot of publicly owned land in London which is clearly surplus to requirement, underused or undeveloped.

“When we have a crisis in affordable housing not just in the capital but in the UK, it begs the question whether councils in Britain should either sell off the land for development or build new homes themselves.

“If a significant number of council garages, which are part of housing estates, are not even rented to those who should have a right to them – local authority tenants – then it could be argued that this is a wasted opportunity.”