Meeting of the Parliament 15 May 2024
I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, as I have a one-sixth share in a family home.
The lack of housing is the single biggest issue that faces rural Scotland. After 17 years, the Scottish Government now admits that we have a housing emergency, but that cannot be solved by a tick-box exercise. We hear of the £25 million scheme for key workers that has bought only four houses, all of which are in Orkney. Why is that the case? I know that NHS Highland has recruited staff only for them to withdraw their applications because they have not been able to find a place to live. Why has that fund not been used?
That is especially an issue in Skye. Last weekend, the accident and emergency in Portree was closed during Skye Live, and there were critical health incidents that had tragic consequences. How can it be that patients in Skye cannot march for health services because policing resources are being used in Inverness to police an Orange order march, but Skye Live can go ahead in Skye without adequate ambulance cover and when the local A and E is closed?
The lack of housing is the biggest economic damper that we face. Services cannot be delivered, and depopulation is rife. The shortage of housing is the biggest issue that we hear about from service providers, businesses and individuals. We need there to be a rural burden, especially on homes that are built with public funding. Those homes need to stay in the local housing market.
Can holiday home and second-home accommodation be restricted? Operators of such accommodation now need licences. Can councils set a ceiling—of 10 per cent, say—for a reasonable number of licences to grant? Although the legislation picks up B and Bs in people’s own homes and camping pods, they are not the problem. In fact, they boost the local economy, so we need to count them out of that. The big problem relates to family homes. Homes that are suitable for year-round accommodation are being taken out of the local housing market.
There is also a lack of social rented housing. Whatever the Government says, it has not overcome the costs barrier that the lack of economies of scale causes. In a small village, one or two houses will be required. We all know about the homes in Barra that cost a quarter of a million pounds each to build.
The issue is partly to do with urban planning restrictions. We need to have a rural planning system that reflects rural housing standards. There is an insistence on street lights, even though there is nowhere to go after dark. Pavements are considered essential, but there are no pavements to join on to. Rainwater collection systems that have been designed for built-up urban areas are specified in areas where there is a nearby river that collects the rainfall. In addition, the cost of connecting to services such as water, sewerage and telecoms, which are services that people need, is astronomical.
We need to find different ways of doing those things in rural areas, because jobs in renewables are—we hope—coming down the track in those areas, but people cannot currently be housed there. We need new houses. There is a housing emergency everywhere, but we are feeling it most in rural areas, which are always being left further behind. The Gaelic language is dying because of the dispersal of native Gaelic speakers. People want to remain in their own communities, but they cannot afford to buy a house and there are no social rented houses available.
The Scottish Government has now acknowledged that there is a problem. It needs to spell out what it is going to do, because depopulation is accelerating and we need answers now.
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