Council block kept empty for years

With the weekend's reports about councils giving tenants £25,000 to move out of their homes; and the BBC's revelations that London Mayor Boris Johnson is going to miss his - incredibly modest - target for new affordable homes; you'd think that we'd have exhausted our stock of existing homes wouldn't you?

Welcome to 31-55 Nursery Close, just behind Ravenna Road in the heart of Putney.

31-55 Nursery Close was custom-made sheltered housing for older people built in the late 1970s. For the last two years and then some, it has been empty - decanted of residents because of plans agreed in 2007 to turn its bedsit accommodation into stand-alone flats.

I've found out from the council that work is due to commence on 16 February to convert the blocks into self-contained units rather than bedsits for the elderly: and that's a good thing. But this work will take a year to complete, so by the time its new residents finally start moving in in 2010, it will have been empty for over three years.

The council could have given its former residents one or two further years of undisrupted stay, instead of moving them out prematurely. It could have been used as temporary accommodation for a few of the thousands on the council's housing waiting list. It could even have been used as a rough sleepers shelter during this exceptionally bitter spell of recent weather. And throughout, it could have been generating rent for the council.

Instead its been left empty. How many other properties are the Conservatives keeping empty?