An increased council tax is due to target people with empty but furnished second properties in Basildon.

The council hopes to address the housing crisis, antisocial behaviour, and "a fairer taxation model for people who can afford it as well" with the increased tax.

Basildon Council agreed to introduce the changes for empty second-furnished homes and homes that have been empty for a year. This came after the government changed councils' powers to set council tax for empty second homes. 

Gavin Callaghan, Labour leader of the council, told a cabinet meeting on December 9 that the additional tax will bring in almost £100,000 in extra income for the council and bring empty homes back into use. 

Cllr Callaghan told the meeting: "The council has the powers now to look at introducing a second home premium which is 100 per cent council tax premium for second homes that are unoccupied but furnished; this is not anything to do with landlords this is people who own second homes and they have that second home in our borough.

"It's also about trying to encourage the long-term empty properties to come back into use as well, so we are looking to apply a premium to those long-term empty properties that have been empty for one year instead of the current two.

"The council forecasts that will raise an additional £363,000 a year, of which £51,000 will stay in Basildon. In terms of the additional income from the long-term empty properties premium that will also generate an additional £311,000 of council tax in which £44,000 will remain in Basildon, so these changes generate around £95,000 of additional income for Basildon Council as well as hopefully helping us to reduce the number of empty homes, helping things like antisocial behaviour, squatting in those homes, that kind of stuff, helping them get back into use, and also a fairer taxation model for people who can afford it as well."

Maryam Yaqub, councillor for digital futures and data analytics, added: "I am really supportive of this policy, I don't know why we haven't done this before, I think it's really important, especially when we have a housing crisis, where we have people who don't currently have homes, I think it's really important that we are able to raise income in whichever way we see fit when people have second homes.

"The income we are looking at getting is significant, I also think it's important as it acts as a deterrent we want to discourage people who have second homes that are left empty on a long-term basis and we did look at this last year in a piece of work where there was a report that was brought cabinet where we saw that people having second homes and the list of empty homes across the borough was increasing so I think it's so important we are doing something about this."