One of the best options available in attempting to solve the UK's housing shortage is to bring empty properties back into use, an expert believes.
This is because converting empty homes into properties is relatively cost-effective and is definitely less expensive than constructing a new house, according to a representative from Empty Homes.
David Ireland, chief executive at Empty Homes, said: "Living next door to an empty home is no fun at all. By getting the property back into use, not only do you provide somebody with a new home, you actually deal with an environmental problem which exists at the moment."
The amount of homes currently being built is well short of the numbers required to sufficiently deal with Britain's housing problem, Mr Ireland also asserted.
His remarks follow an announcement by Greg Clark, which revealed that the government could scrap red tape in order to incentivise "meanwhile uses" of empty buildings.