Sam Wollaston

speaker

167 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 29 Jun

Sam Wollaston’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.

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Today in Focus · Life on the porch of an empty mansion · 29 Jun 2026 podcast

We're building luxury apartments and they don't house either the homeless or poor people.

I also spoke to Shelter, the charity for homelessness, and they actually came up with a plan of how to convert empty houses into social rent homes.

And that included compulsory purchase.

That means councils being able to just buy empty properties.

Also disincentivising people having empty homes for obviously, you know, through taxes, that kind of stuff.

And also providing councils with the funds to do that.

I mean, no one's suggesting that a Westminster council is probably richer than most councils, but I don't think they have a spare 200 million to buy this.

And although Rutland Gate is a stark picture of the situation, I don't think the solution is to buy it and open it up to social housing.

Probably.

It was incredibly stark and incredibly visible.

I mean, you read about wealth gaps, you read about housing crisis, but I think you need – I mean, that's why we needed to kind of find a –

particular building and a particular person to to do this story with because you need that to kind of drive it home that's all very well to have lots of figures about homelessness and wealth gaps and offshore property but when you see it like that it just it puts it into absolute visceral terms and that's what it felt like to me obviously i mean and as being slightly cheerful about it was unexpected but also charming as well i mean he's a very charming person

I think empty buildings are fascinating because they tell stories of something that was and isn't anymore.

And that sort of paints a picture of decline.

And it could be decline of industry.

It could be decline of the way we shop.

It could be

social habits, but it wasn't all kind of hopeless because as well as these empty buildings and stories, I met some extraordinary people.

I mean, Anders is one of them, but I met a lovely couple in Wales who had been the last congregation in their church before it closed.

And I met the last two people living in a tower block in Hackney.

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