Urbanism
Environment
Design

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URBED were asked to give a presentation to the Empty Homes Agency conference held as part of Ecobuild in March 2009. This was initially based on a presentation by Jonathan Brown on empty homes and other buildings in Liverpool. We look first at the complex reasons areas become subject to dereliction - often this is a symptom of 'decanting' and clearance decisions, rather than their fundamental cause. The presentation points out that the HMR net caught lots of different fish. It was a mistake to think that the same solutions would fit all of these neighbourhoods, especially when the main weapon was demolition, as it so often was in the early days of HMR. The presentation concludes that the pain of mass clearance is seldom worthwhile and looks at alternative solutions appropriate to the current economic climate.