Basildon owns 10,863 council homes. On 31 March 2025, 158 stood empty, 68 of them for more than six months, while 2,376 households sat on the housing register.

Basildon Council owned 158 empty homes on 31 March 2025. On the same day, 2,376 households were on its housing register, and 1,231 of those households included children.

Both numbers come from the same place: the council’s own annual return to central government, published as Local Authority Housing Statistics. The 2024-25 figures were published on 13 November 2025 and revised on 25 June 2026. They are the most recent available.

The empty homes are not mostly turnaround voids

A council always has some homes empty. Tenants move out, the place gets painted, a new tenant moves in. That churn is real, and it accounts for 53 of Basildon’s 158.

The rest is a longer story:

  • 53 homes had been empty for less than six weeks
  • 37 homes had been empty for between six weeks and six months
  • 68 homes had been empty for more than six months

Of those 68 long-term empties, only four were recorded as available for letting. Another 45 were temporarily unavailable, and 19 were permanently unavailable.

Chart of Basildon Council's 158 empty homes on 31 March 2025 by how long they had been empty and their status. Empty under six weeks: 51 available to let, 2 temporarily unavailable, none permanently unavailable. Six weeks to six months: 20 available, 17 temporarily unavailable, none permanently unavailable. Over six months: 4 available, 45 temporarily unavailable, 19 permanently unavailable.
The longer a Basildon council home has been empty, the less likely it is to be lettable. Figures as at 31 March 2025.
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The government’s guidance to councils sets out what those labels mean, and they are more specific than they sound:

  • Available for letting covers homes needing only normal maintenance and redecoration between tenants, or already allocated to a new tenant.
  • Temporarily unavailable covers homes needing substantive works that cannot be done around a tenant, homes under unauthorised occupation, and anything else expected to come back into letting.
  • Permanently unavailable covers only two things: stock awaiting sale, and stock awaiting demolition.

So 19 of the borough’s council homes were, on that date, never coming back as council housing.

How Basildon compares

Basildon’s vacancy rate is not the outlier the raw count suggests. The 158 empties are 1.45% of the 10,863 dwellings the council owns. Across England the figure is 2.14%, or 33,368 empty out of 1,561,241 council-owned homes.

Among the Essex councils that still own their housing stock, the picture on 31 March 2025 was:

Council Homes owned Empty Rate
Colchester 6,031 56 0.93%
Thurrock 9,790 95 0.97%
Epping Forest 6,376 66 1.04%
Basildon 10,863 158 1.45%
Brentwood 2,490 39 1.57%
Southend-on-Sea 6,060 96 1.58%
Castle Point 1,495 24 1.61%
Harlow 9,050 165 1.82%
Tendring 3,078 101 3.28%
Uttlesford 2,823 103 3.65%

Braintree, Chelmsford, Maldon and Rochford transferred their housing stock and report almost none, so they are not comparable.

The stock is shrinking

The same return records what happened to Basildon’s council housing during 2024-25:

  • 71 homes demolished
  • 21 new homes built
  • 9 homes acquired

That is a net loss of 41 council homes in a single year, in a borough with 2,376 households on the register.

Who is waiting

The register is not a queue of people who simply fancy a council house. Of the 2,376 households on it, 1,630 were in a statutory reasonable preference category. The council recorded them as:

  • 1,272 living in insanitary, overcrowded or otherwise unsatisfactory housing
  • 419 owed a homelessness duty by a housing authority
  • 227 needing to move on medical or welfare grounds
  • 72 homeless within the meaning of the legislation

The households on the register break down by size as 1,090 needing one bedroom, 799 needing two, 352 needing three and 135 needing more than three. The empty homes broke down as 88 one-bedroom, 40 two-bedroom, 27 three-bedroom and three with four or more. The sizes broadly match the need, which is worth saying plainly: the problem in these figures is not that the council is holding the wrong kind of home empty.

Basildon applies no residency or local connection test to its register, and does not disqualify households in rent arrears. It runs a choice-based lettings scheme.

What it means for you

  • The register figure is a snapshot at 31 March 2025, not a live waiting list, and the government’s own technical notes warn that the number of households on a register “is not the same as the number of households waiting for social housing”.
  • These 158 homes are council-owned. They are a different thing from privately owned empty houses, which are the ones a council tax empty homes premium applies to.
  • To apply for or check a place on the housing register, go to the council’s housing pages.
  • If you want the underlying data yourself, the full spreadsheet is on GOV.UK. Basildon is area code E07000066. Section A holds the stock, Section C the register and Section E the vacants.

We also track house prices across the borough on our Basildon house prices page, and new housing applications on Basildon planning news.

Sources