FOI/EIR 26/27-277-Empty Commercial Properties

Number of empty commercial properties and details of any action taken

Request received 21 August 2026

Please could you provide the following information for areas that fall under East Cambridgeshire Council's authority for the period 1 January 2021 to 31st December 2025:

mercial and retail properties

  • The total number of commercial/retail premises recorded as empty, vacant or unoccupied
  • Where available, please could these figures be broken down by length of vacancy:
    • Less than 6 months
    • 6 – 12 months
    • 12 months – 2 years
    • More than 2 years
  1. Empty property business rates relief
  • The number of commercial/retail properties receiving empty property business rates relief or exemption at the end of each calendar year
  1. Empty property notices
  • The number of empty property notices, enforcement notices, or equivalent action taken in relation to vacant commercial/retail premises
  1. Enforcement action relating to derelict buildings
  • The number of enforcement actions taken in relation to vacant, derelict or poorly maintained commercial/retail premises, including boarding-up/securing works, Section 215 notices and other relevant enforcement notices, where separately recorded
  1. Environmental health and anti-social behaviour

  • Where separately recorded by the council or its relevant ASB team, please share the number of environmental complaints, reports, investigations, interventions or enforcement actions

    Responded 15 September 2026

  •  

    1.Please see attachment 1.
    Please note that we are not able to provide a breakdown of "length of vacancy" due to the complexity of the dataset. To gather this data, we would have to visit each individual account within our database, which would not be possible with the time limit.
    2. Please see attachment 2
    3. Zero
    4. Zero
    5. As we record Env Health complaints in terms of what the issue is for example pests, untidy land, waste accumulations etc rather than type of premises, we are unable to search each case to identify if it is specifically a complaint against a vacant, derelict or poorly maintained business premises.