Then they were set free, out the front door to run wild in the empty town.
Of those, 129 responses were received to the question about increases in empty town centre properties.
The survey conducted by charity Empty Homes shows almost 3, 000 properties (7.36%) are empty in the town.
BBC: Burnley has 'highest empty house percentage in England'
Maidstone Borough Council said there were more than 1, 500 empty homes in the town, and 3, 500 people on the housing waiting list.
The council had intended to sell its empty buildings in the town to help fund the scheme but decided against it following the economic downturn.
BBC: Brecon: ?8.4m scheme to refurbish museum and build library
Thousands of sites remain from the two centuries that separated the industrial revolution from de-industrialisation at the end of the 20th century: abandoned coalmines and steelmills, empty textiles factories and town gas works.
New businesses in Hartlepool are being offered money by the council to help revive the town's empty shops.
According to the The Local Data Company (LDC), which compiles statistics on high street shop vacancy rates, the town has more empty shops than anywhere else in Scotland.
Owners of empty homes in a Kent town could be forced to sell their properties as part of a council scheme to ease a housing shortage in the area.
The town remains nearly empty and deserted, with Erdos denizens preferring their old houses and apartments, and the vast majority of new residences purchased as investments by people from who knows where.
FORBES: Erdos Per Capita GDP May Surpass Hong Kong's in 3 years
Built as a temperance hall in 1873, Dawley Town Hall has been empty since it closed in 2011.
Business owners said they feared new shops coming into the city would choose the new site, rather than the historic High Town area, which has empty shops.
BBC: Hereford livestock market revamp plans 'may split city'
Ipswich's two town centre shopping centres have empty units, the former civic centre site is still undeveloped and Sir Stuart Rose, the former chairman of Marks and Spencer, has offered his input into revitalising the town centre.
In New Orleans, anxiety was high Saturday as residents fled, leaving behind a ghost town of boarded-up homes and empty streets.
CNN: Mandatory evacuations to begin Sunday morning in New Orleans
By some twist of luck, she had a brother who was out of town, who happened to have an empty apartment near the Bastille.
"I don't want to see the land and the building stay empty and broken, " one parent said during a town hall meeting Sunday night.
Also on Tuesday, an artillery shell struck inside a second U.N. school in the same town, but the boys' prep school was empty at the time, UNRWA director John Ging said.
CNN: U.N. agency demands Israel support claims about militants at school
Costa has not commented but some locals support the prospect of the chain moving to the town, pointing out that the building would otherwise be empty.
BBC: Rivals join together to keep Costa Coffee out of Bakewell
As the news crew drove into town, the dusty streets in the extremely poor area were mostly empty except for military vehicles and French and Malian troops.
But the vast empty car park outside the Art of War City and its near-deserted courtyards suggest the town is struggling.
With his mother and father out of town for the weekend, Roy was left to forage for food in their nearly empty refrigerator.
The empty, snow-covered streets serve as a reminder of what's missing in this town, and he lets people trundle through the winter chill as if they're serving a penance for merely existing.
CNN: Review: Vengeance in a town full of grief in 'The Sweet Hereafter'
On a walking tour of the town center, Elliot points out Easton's cache of historic 19th-cenury buildings and pockets of empty storefronts.
应用推荐