Insurance News Archive

Environmental cost of demolishing empty properties 'enormous'

The effects on the environment from knocking down empty properties have been described by one expert as "enormous".

Henry Oliver, policy advisor at the Empty Homes Agency, said one of the biggest problems about the number of buildings sitting vacant across the country is the wider ecological impact.

This includes the inherent energy used in the initial construction and past use of the building being "a big investment in terms of carbon".

"If you demolish it, even if you re-use the materials, you've got to build a new one he explained.

He went on to say that was around four and a half times as much in the way of CO2 emissions per square metre as refurbishment and advised people not to demolish an empty property "unless you have to".

According to research from the organisation, there were 672,924 empty residences in England in 2007, an increase from the previous year of 663,328.

30 Sep 2008