TAX breaks for empty homes are costing councils in the south more than £11m, the Daily Echo can reveal.

Taxpayers are subsidising discounts for second home owners and landlords of neglected properties that lie vacant.

With parts of Hampshire facing a huge squeeze on affordable housing campaigners say more needs to be done to reduce the number of homes that are empty.

Ministers say they want to allow councils to abolish the discounts to spend the cash on services, although that power has not yet been handed over.

The impact of the discounts on the local economy is revealed by figures published in the House of Commons Library.

Holiday home hotspots such as the New Forest and the Isle of Wight are hit particularly hard.

Most of the £1.9m cost in Southampton related to vacant homes that had been empty for more than six months.

The Government claims that ending the discounts would shave £20 off the average household’s council tax bill.

Currently the owners of properties that are empty are entitled to a range of tax reliefs. Councils are forced to offer second home-owners at least ten per cent off their bills, while other breaks apply to homes that are vacant for other reasons.

Campaigners say it is wrong for taxpayers to be subsidising weal-thy homeowners and landlords of empty buildings at a time of service cuts and housing shortages.

Trevor Pickup, chief executive of Southampton-based homeless charity The Society of St James, said: “We are keen to see every possible action to bring empty properties back into use. We are concerned about the level of empty properties that exist and are in private ownership.

“Anything that can be done is a good thing.”

Last autumn the Government launched a consultation into allowing councils to scrap the discounts altogether. A spokesman for the Department of Communities and Local Government, which published the figures in response to a question from Labour’s communities spokesman Hilary Benn, said: “Removing such special tax relief and treating them like any other home could help reduce overall council tax bills by £20 a year on an average Band D bill. The consultation has now closed and we are considering the responses.”