FLINTSHIRE County Council has amongst the highest number of empty properties in Wales according to a study. 

Thousands of council-owned buildings have spent time empty across a two year period, costing taxpayers tens of millions of pounds in insurance, security, maintenance and renovation, new research by the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) has found. 

Between January 2022 and December 2023, at least 4,908 council-owned non-residential properties were vacant for all or part of that time, with 3,408 of these properties adding up to a total of over 8.3 million square metres.

£88.5 million was spent by local authorities across the UK during that period on insuring, securing, maintaining and renovating these properties.

Compared to the last time this research was conducted, the number of empty non-residential properties has grown. For councils that provided data for both 2016 to 2017, and 2022 to 2023, the number of vacant properties increased by 11.2 per cent from 3,206 to 3,564.

In Wales there were 210 empty properties disclosed by local authorities to the TPA between January 2022 and December 2023, costing £648,956.

The TPA say the council with the most empty properties in Wales was Flintshire, with 58, however there may be other councils with more, who haven't revealed their figures. 

The council with the highest spending on empty properties was Merthyr Tydfil, at £449,854.

The TPA is calling on councils to reconsider any plans to expand their property portfolios and to sell off empty properties if they cannot be filled. Any funding raised from selling commercial investments can currently only be used for capital purposes, or for projects that lead to ongoing savings or efficiency improvements. 

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Shimeon Lee, researcher at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: "Taxpayers will be amazed by the property portfolio that has been built up by big-spending town hall bosses

“But what will really shock residents is the number of local authorities who have allowed prime real estate to sit vacant, despite complaining incessantly about the perilous state of their finances.

“Councils across the UK need to carefully review their assets and ensure they develop a strategy for any that are being under-utilised.”

A Flintshire County Council spokesperson said: “The research by TaxPayers’ Alliance does not take into account the numbers of vacant properties across the whole of Wales as not every local authority reported figures.

"Flintshire County Council endeavours where possible to ensure there are low numbers of vacant properties within its retained assets. However, matters such as restrictive covenants, compulsory purchase orders, sales or transfers stalling or failing and prevailing market conditions all impact this issue.

"Since the documented reports (2016-17 and 2022-23), the council has reduced the number of empty non-residential buildings by around 40 per cent.”