THE two Thresher stores in Terminus Road and Grove Road, Eastbourne, are pretty much the same as off-licences everywhere.

But above the two stores are three flats that have been empty for a combined total of more than 30 years.

Attempts by Eastbourne Borough Council to get Thresher to return the flats to homes have met with rebuff after rebuff.

For Darryl Lawrence, the authority's empty properties co-ordinator, it is frustrating. His office is less than 100 yards from the Grove Road branch but he cannot get to see the flats.

Instead, he has to deal with Thresher's head office in Welwyn Garden City where managers have other things on their minds.

He said: "Without going in I have no idea whether they are one, two or three-bedroom flats.

"They might just need a lick of paint but they could also need a complete rebuilding and the frustrating thing is I don't know. I am not allowed in them."

His problems do not stop there. Without talking to Thresher he does not know exactly who owns the flats, or even if they could be returned to use.

The big High Street chains, with notable exceptions, like Boots and NatWest, are among the main offenders and turning the space above their stores into homes comes a long way down most firms's lists of business priorities.

Mr Lawrence said: "Some High Street chains do have difficulties getting the freeholder's permission to sub-lease it but more often they don't - it is just apathy.

"Trying to deal with head office is a nightmare because they have got bigger fish to fry."

Elsewhere in Eastbourne, two cottages owned by Unigate have been empty for six years. They could be returned to use for an estimated £10,000 each and Mr Lawrence's office has got no response from Our Price about flats above its town centre shop.

Corporate apathy, though, is not the only reason for houses and flats standing idle. Four privately-owned homes, also in Eastbourne, have been empty for between five and 16 years.

The reasons vary, from the mundane to the sad. One of the houses was bought by a London couple as a retirement home but subsequently never lived in.

At another the owner became too frail, moved to a care home, but never sold the house in the hope that one day he would move back.

As the house stood empty it gradually became more and more derelict.

There are an estimated 21,000 empty homes in East Sussex, West Sussex and Brighton and Hove, a figure that does not include unused commercial property that could be turned into homes and many flats above shops.

As a percentage of Sussex's total dwelling stock, the figure varies from two per cent in some district council areas to ten per cent.

Hastings, where 10.1 per cent of homes are empty, has one of the highest figures in the country.

In England as a whole there are some 750,000 empty homes.

Many are in increasingly under-populated town centres. Bringing them back into use helps to reduce crime. There are more people around and about and empty homes are always a tempting target for vandals.

Having people living in town centres, who tend to spend their money there, also brings more business for town-centre traders.

Returning empty homes to use should also cut the number of new homes that need to be built, most of them going on greenfield sites. As a very crude estimate, each 1,000 new homes will cover an area the size of 25 football pitches.

In West Sussex County Council's well-publicised example, the authority has been ordered by ministers to build 50,700 new homes, nearly 13,000 more than it believes it has got room for.

According to the most recent figures, there are 9,200 empty homes in West Sussex.

For the homeless, for families living in bed and breakfast, or otherwise in housing need, recycling empty properties offers the chance of getting a new home sooner.

When Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker last looked at figures for empty homes in Lewes District Council's area there were about 1,000, roughly the same as the number of people on the housing waiting list.

He believes changes in the law are needed to bring disused homes back into use and combat the twin problems of greenfield housebuilding and homelessness.

He said owners who leave properties empty should pay double council tax. As things stand, a landlord who leaves a property idle only pays 50 per cent.

Mr Baker said: "It is crazy when we are building on greenfield sites when we have buildings empty in town centres.

"We need to provide financial penalties for people who sit on empty properties in order to encourage them to rent them out to people who are on council waiting lists and in desperate need of a roof over their heads."

Neither Thresher nor Unigate were able to respond to questions put by the Argus yesterday about the Eastbourne properties.

A special hotline, on Freephone 00800 0283375,- to report empty homes in Sussex has been set up as part of National Empty Homes Week and will run for the rest of April.

Tomorrow: Trying to tackle the problem.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.