Consider the many reasons why properties will lay empty, such as for example:

* Owner dies; handling the estate can sometimes take a year.

* Refurbishment can drag out; it's not unusual for large scale building refurbishments to take a year or two.

* Uncertainty over developments; e.g. near me a building of flats stood empty for 2 years or so because it was slated for demolition to make way for new developments that is finally now underway.

When you factor this in, 0.6% minus the "acceptable" reasons simply doesn't leave much room left for any large number of homes to have been left empty for no good reason.

The real scandal is not that there are 22,000 empty homes, but that consecutive governments have left councils in a state that means they don't have the available council flats to find longer term homes for those they are legally required to assist with housing for. They are in temporary housing not because housing can't be found, but because doing so means spending over the "wrong" budgets, and spending too much to replenish council housing that was sold off cheaply starting with Thatcher and that now would cost a fortune to replace because you'd be competing with quite wealthy people willing to stretch far to avoid being displaced further out of the centre of town.