Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen is partly to blame for the state of empty council homes in Oxford -- and delays in re-letting them, says the man responsible for them.

The interior designer, famous for his Changing Rooms television programme, has caused such a stir among tenants that many have copied his lead and tried their hand at home modifications -- often with dire consequences.

Now Oxford City Council's new empty homes tsar Martyn Mumford, who started work this month, has vowed to halve the time it takes between properties becoming vacant and them being reallocated to new tenants.

On average it takes four working weeks -- or 20 days -- between a house in the city becoming empty and being re-let.

Mr Mumford, a 35-year-old university graduate, wants to halve this statistic within 18 months to ease the pressure on the city's chronic council housing shortage.

At any one time 160 of the council's 8,100 homes are empty -- or void -- due to repairs or modifications being carried out, but that is scant consolation if your are one of the 5,000 odd people on the housing waiting list.

Mr Mumford said: "There is definitely a Changing Rooms mentality because people watch these home improvement programmes and feel they have the necessary skills to do the work, but they probably haven't.

"I would urge any tenant thinking of doing anything above the norm to contact their estate manager so that we don't have these problems.

"In the past we have had some very interesting efforts and this is hampering our efforts to turn round properties in time.

"I'm more than aware of the problems surrounding rent, which is astronomical -- affordable accommodation is not affordable if you cannot afford it."

Damage and vandalism account for a large proportion of the repair work, but in the past tenants have painted walls black and bright orange, knocked down partition walls to make rooms "open plan" and even attempted to rewire entire homes.

Mr Mumford said: "One former tenant had stripped out a gas central heating system and took it along with sockets and light fittings. It doesn't amaze me, but it's only a small minority of people that do this kind of thing."

In addition to coordinating various Town Hall departments in an effort to instill a culture of structure to the repairs and letting service, Mr Mumford, who is being paid a salary of about £35,000, is responsible for chasing private contractors.

Last year 40 per cent of people hoping to be allocated a council house received a letter saying they stood little or no chance of ever getting one.

Mr Mumford added: "I know this is people's lives you are impacting on, but my opinion is that it is better to be honest. It's worth staying on the list, but at the moment you need to be realistic -- it's something we have to live with as a local authority.

"This is a large-scale project, but I am confident that I can turn it round.

"I would like to get the voids down to two weeks, but that's not realistic at the moment -- maybe in 18 months' time."

More than £64m is being pumped into ensuring that the council's housing stock meets the Government's Decent Homes Standard by 2010.