261,471 are classed as “long-term empty,” meaning no-one has lived there for six months or more.

If all empty homes were brought back into use, the housing crisis would be solved at a stroke and, arguably, the government would not have to build 1.5m new homes.

I know number literacy is not journalism’s strong point, but surely even the author can grasp the basics of “which number is bigger”.

Bringing 0.25 million houses into occupancy does not “arguably” negate the need to build 1.5 million houses. At best it reduces the required new builds to 1.25 million.

The larger figure (700k) is a meaningless figure for this discussion, because short term vacant homes are by definition not a problem that needs to be solved. Most of them will be homes which are vacant “been occupants”, e.g. ones where the tenant has moved out and a new one hasn’t moved in yet, or the homes of the recently deceased whose estate is still in the process of winding up.

Heck, even a proportion of the 250k “long term” ones won’t be actual problem vacancies; some of those will just be ones like those of the recently deceased for whom the process takes longer than 6 months. A relative of mine recently died, and it took maybe 4-5 months to sort out probate, another couple of months on the market before an offer was accepted, and as far as I know now (about 6 months on again) the new owner is still in the process of renovating it prior to moving in. That’s “long term vacant” in those stats, but it’s not a problem that needs anyone to solve it- it’s just that sometimes things take time.