EDWARD MOUNTAIN: Building houses is the only way to deal with shortage in Highlands
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
Holyrood Notebook by Edward Mountain
Housing shortages across the Highlands are fuelling deep concerns about the resilience of our rural communities.
Indeed, in a recent Highlands and Islands Enterprise survey it was found that two-thirds of people in Caithness and Sutherland feel that there simply aren’t enough homes to buy or rent for local people.
That is a troubling statistic, particularly as the same survey showed that housing pressures were a key reason as to why younger Highlanders are planning to leave the region. This is alarming – the risks of Highland depopulation should not be underestimated.
Given the seriousness of the situation, many will be looking to the Scottish Government to take urgent action. Some may even be encouraged by the emergency legislation to freeze rent increases across Scotland, passed only a few weeks ago.
In the short term, such a move will be a relief to those households struggling with the cost-of-living crisis. However well-intentioned the rent freeze may be though, it does not begin to address the long-term issue of housing shortages in the Highlands and across Scotland.
Indeed, I worry that this emergency legislation may well compound the problems of a lack of housing. For example, in the weeks since the legislation passed, we’ve already seen Labour peer Lord Willie Haughey, who had plans to invest £1 billion to build 11,000 affordable homes to rent in Glasgow, shelve these developments citing the rent freeze as a reason. How many housebuilders in the Highlands will be thinking along similar lines?
It is right for the Scottish Government to act – but not in ill-informed ways that make housing shortages worse. This is not the first time though that ministers have chosen a policy which only distorts the market further, rather than increasing housing supply.
Constant tinkering with tenancy legislation since 2016 has already seen many landlords and their properties leave the private rented sector too. In fact, the Scottish Association of Landlords reported earlier this year that around 36,000 homes (nearly 10 per cent) have been removed from listings. That’s a huge decrease.
Having a shrinking number of private rented properties available may not have been such a problem had the Scottish Government built enough social housing in the last 15 years.
However, the Scottish Government have continually failed every year to meet its building targets for affordable homes. This failure has a huge knock-on impact, with around 9000 households still on the waiting list for social homes in the Highlands.
If the path taken by the Scottish Government so far is not helping families secure homes locally, the question is, what will?
The most important action is radically increasing housebuilding. That’s why I and my Scottish Conservative colleagues are pressing for 25,000 new homes to be built per year, with a specific focus on the affordable and social rented sectors.
If we focus our attentions on building enough homes then I believe our Highland communities will thrive long into the future. More housing will encourage our young people to stay and attract new families to the region too.
Construction, not more legislation, is the answer. Rest assured, I will continue to challenge the Scottish Government to boost housebuilding in the Highlands and across Scotland.
- Edward Mountain is a Highlands and Islands MSP for the Scottish Conservatives.
