Highland MSP wants action on empty homes
A SCOTTISH Greens MSP has called for the UK and Scottish Government to work together to tackle the issue of empty homes.
Ariane Burgess, Scottish Green MSP for the Highlands and Islands, wants to see the bringing of empty properties back into use prioritised, which she says will help quickly and affordably tackle the housing crisis
Speaking after the Highland Housing Summit which met this week in Aviemore, Ms Burgess welcomed the meeting between the Scotland’s housing minister, Highland Council, energy giant SSEN and the Scottish National Investment Bank.
SSEN is proposing to build 1000 new homes across the north - including 400 in the Highlands - initially to provide accommodation for workers helping create new energy infrastructure but the available to the community.
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Ms Burgess welcomed that but also stressed the need to act faster and support councils and communities to make more of existing housing stock.
Pointing to an initiative in Wales she said: “We need to create a fund for local authorities to scale up existing empty homes teams to bring thousands of private empty homes per year back into use.
“The fund could support acquisition of such homes and the cost of bringing them up to modern social housing standards.
“Retrofitting and repurposing existing vacant buildings, like the flats above empty shops, can create three homes for the same price of building one from scratch and has the added benefit of being close to the amenities people need on a daily basis.
“Delivering this requires a local, well-trained workforce, so I’ve also called on the government to invest in a mobile traditional building skills training unit – a model that has been working successfully in Ireland to bring specialist construction training to rural communities.
“This could work with Historic Environment Scotland’s recently-announced plans to expand training provided at its specialist centre in Stirling.
“While I welcome SSEN’s proposals to take out long leases on long-term empty homes and to look at refurbishing existing buildings, we need to see much more detail on these plans and real funding to support the work many councils are already undertaking.”