Wick councillor highlights housing issues
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A COUNCILLOR has drawn attention to the unique housing issues facing Caithness.
Speaking at a Highland Council meeting in Inverness, Councillor Raymond Bremner called for a feasibility study to examine the current and future housing profile needs for the county.
"Caithness is in a different position to the rest of the Highland Council area where, at any time, there can be between 40 and 70 void properties within the council’s housing estates, mainly in Wick," said Councillor Bremner, who represents Wick and East Caithness.
"While there is demand for housing, there is little or no demand for certain house types in various locations. The council has tried a number of ideas to encourage people to take up tenancy but the demand for these properties still remains low."
His address followed the council’s Strategic Housing Investment Plan presented at a meeting of the environment, development and infrastructure committee on Thursday.
"Void properties do not generate income but there continues to be a cost to maintain them," Councillor Bremner said afterwards.
"It is difficult for the council to consider building houses that satisfy current local demand while there are so many vacant properties."
During the debate, he said the local authority should engage with other agencies to facilitate the regeneration of housing stock in the area.
He also sought and received confirmation that any sales of houses would be put back into the council’s housing revenue account.
He said later: “Despite all the council’s efforts, I think we should be engaging with other agencies, including Highlands and Islands Enterprise and Caithness and North Sutherland Regeneration Partnership, to undertake a feasibility study that will allow us to identify what the housing profile demand for the area will be in coming years.”
He also pointed out how recent reports had highlighted concerns in respect of the future depopulation in Caithness.
“We know that the profile of the community will change with the decommissioning of Dounreay and the diversification of the economy. We have been made aware in recent reports of our need to address depopulation," he said.
"There are also changing needs and demands within our community and the county’s housing profile has to reflect this."
He believes that undertaking a feasibility study will help identify housing that could be considered "surplus to demand".
"This information can be used to identify properties in the council portfolio that could be declared surplus to requirement, sold and the funds raised used to regenerate local housing that better reflects the needs of our community.”
Councillor Bremner also highlighted an issue whereby increasing demands for developer contributions towards projects in the local area have been adversely impacting on developers and their ability to open up and complete new developments.
He said: “Talking to local developers, they are telling me that fluctuating demand and changing market conditions – impacted by increasing demands for developer contributions – are adversely impacting on returns for future investment and taking longer periods of time to complete developments. We need to look at this.”
He said it was agreed that housing officers will meet with members to explore potential ideas to regenerate housing in the local area.
