17/05/2026
There are more empty rooms above shops than there are homeless people, and there are far more empty properties in the UK than there are homeless people and asylum seekers combined. So what’s stopping us use the empty buildings we already have?
There are more empty rooms above shops in Britain than there are homeless people on the streets.
And nobody's allowed to convert them.
Walk down any high street in the country.
Look up.
Second floor, dark. Third floor, dark. Fourth floor, pigeons and rot.
Thousands of buildings. Millions of square feet. Exposed brick walls that hipsters would pay a fortune for in New York or Berlin. Sitting empty above a Greggs and a v**e shop while the council next door tells you there's a housing crisis.
I know because I've tried to convert them. I bought a four-storey building on a high street in Wrexham. Dead upper floors. Slowly falling apart.
We drew up plans for nine high-quality rooms with commercial space kept downstairs. The council approached us wanting to lease the whole building for vulnerable people.
Private money. Brownfield site. No green belt touched. Town centre regenerated. Housing delivered. Everybody wins.
But it’sd been blocked in planning due to Phosphate levels in a river 30 miles away.
And our building isn't unusual. It's the norm.
Here's why these conversions don't happen.
First, planning.
Converting upper floors from commercial to residential use means navigating a system designed for new-build housing estates, not town centre conversions.
Sure, we have permitted development, which is great if you have a box you can carve into neat flats.
The reality for a lot of our old buildings…
Separate access requirements. Fire escape routes through buildings you don't own.
Sound insulation standards written for new concrete frames, not Victorian brickwork.
Every requirement makes sense in isolation.
Together they make the project unviable.
Second, utilities.
In our case, phosphate regulations linked to the River Dee froze development across the region. Welsh Water needed upgrading.
Everyone knew it. Nobody upgraded it.
Applications just stopped. But even without phosphates, connecting historic buildings to modern drainage, electrics and ventilation is a nightmare of surveys, wayleaves and approvals that can add six months before you lay a brick.
Third, cost.
Converting awkward upper floors above shops costs more per unit than building on a greenfield site. You're working with irregular layouts, structural unknowns, restricted access for materials.
The maths only works if you can move fast and keep finance costs down. The planning system guarantees you can't.
Fourth, risk.
A volume housebuilder can spread risk across 200 units on a clean site. A small developer converting six flats above a shop is all-in on one building.
If planning drags or costs overrun, there's no buffer. That's why small builders have been disappearing from the market for twenty years.
So the buildings sit empty. The high streets decay. The housing crisis deepens. And the political debate stays stuck on whether to blame landlords or tenants while the answer is literally gathering dust above their heads.
Someone in my comments last week said something that stuck with me. He'd travelled across Europe and noticed that in Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, they use the whole building.
Every floor occupied.
Ground floor commercial, upper floors residential. It's normal. It's obvious.
In Britain, we've made it nearly impossible.
This is exactly what Point 4 and Point 5 of the Build Don't Blame manifesto exist to fix.
Point 4: unlock wasted buildings. Prioritise brownfield regeneration and urban conversion so we create homes without touching green space.
Point 5: create a fast-track planning route for small builders. A dedicated pathway so that a six-unit conversion above a shop doesn't have to navigate the same system designed for a 500-home estate.
These aren't derelict warehouses in the middle of nowhere. They're buildings on high streets people walk past every day. In towns that already have the roads, the schools, the GP surgeries, the bus routes. The infrastructure is already there. The buildings are already there. The demand is already there.
The only thing missing is a system that lets someone actually do it.
Next time you're on your local high street, look up. Count the dark windows. Then ask your council what their plan is for those buildings.
I guarantee you they don't have one.
