The leader of Durham County Council's empty homes team has called on other councils to create similar dedicated teams.

Susan Cousins has worked on bringing empty homes back into use since 2003. 

Now, she leads the dedicated team of five officers and four support officers in the DCC empty homes team which has won five awards this year.

There are 50,000 empty homes in the North East and more than 10,000 of them are the responsibility of DCC. 

Ms Cousins described how each case was different and the "sensitivity" which was needed when dealing with anyone's home.

She said: "One of the things people forget is that when we are dealing with these properties this is somebody’s home.

"You have got to be really sensitive about how you are dealing with these things. This is someone’s home, you can’t just take it from them.

"Some of the homes people think are empty are actually occupied and the person chooses to live like that."

She described her team as "detectives" that have to track down the owners of the empty properties in Durham.

Ms Cousins added: "We have access through legislation to council tax data.

"Anything that is reported we will check and try to find ownership.

"It all depends if people have updated their ownership. The key is being proactive, going out and about and being like a detective."

Groups like Action on Empty Homes have called on the government to give more powers and funding to councils and teams like the one in Durham.

Ms Cousins said that she would appreciate any boost in funding and encouraged other councils to form empty homes teams to fix the problem.

She said: "Any support we can get from government would be great.

"Durham is one of the really good authorities with an empty homes team.

"I have the support of management and I'm really fortunate to have that.

"Some of my colleagues (in other councils dealing with empty homes) don’t have that.

"Some local authorities don’t have empty homes officers and they are dealt with through environmental health.

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"I do think every council should have an empty homes team."

The hard work is paying off for the Durham team as they have been recognised at the National Empty Homes Conference.

This year they won five awards at the conference, following recognition in the previous four years too.