Holyrood elections 2026: Edinburgh Central hustings hears of Labour plan for £1 home ownership scheme for derelict homes
Labour candidate James Dalgleish says homes would be sold for £1 to be renovated and brought back into use
Labour plans to sell derelict homes for £1 in a bid to bring them back into use and boost home ownership, the party's candidate for Edinburgh Central told a hustings.
James Dalgleish set out the "£1 home ownership scheme" after candidates in the constituency were asked for their views on housing and homelessness.
In 2023, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar floated a plan for empty or derelict homes to be bought by the Scottish Government, then sold for £1 and the purchasers given a government-backed loan to transform them into homes.
Councillor Dalgleish told the hustings: "There's more people in temporary accommodation in Edinburgh than there is in the whole of Wales and I think that fact should shock us all. I find it absolutely sickening, but we have to do something about it."
He said it started with local government getting funding to invest in social homes. "But Edinburgh council's budget has been cut by the SNP government since 2013 by £650m. So what a Labour government is going to do is give local government multi-year funding so they know what kind of budget they're going to get so they can make the investment they need in things like council homes and social homes.
"Labour has a plan across Scotland to build 125,000 new homes and have many of them as affordable homes.
"We're also going to put forward a plan to have a £1 home ownership scheme for derelict homes. So if there's a derelict home, someone can invest £1 in that by taking the ownership to bring that home up to standard so someone can buy it or rent it."
The SNP's Angus Robertson. who is seeking re-election in Central, said it had been essential to end the right to buy, which the Scottish Government had done.
"It was absolutely right to deal with short-term lets, which had literally hollowed out large parts of the city, especially in the centre. That has freed up a lot of accommodation - if you look at any house selling website you will see lovely pictures of flats that were clearly short-term lets, so we are seeing more properties coming onto the rental and purchasing market.
"There's no getting round the fact we need to build more houses and the Scottish Government has committed to doing that, but also making it possible for young people to get on the housing ladder."
Conservative candidate Jo Mowat argued for a review of regulations in order to tackle the city's housing problems.
She said: “Homelessness has increased, the supply of housing has gone down and housing costs have gone up as regulations have increased. So we need to look at the regulations that have been put on.
"When the Tenants Actwas introduced in 2017 short-term lets went up because landlords exited the market and there was nothing put in place. We need to be looking at how we encourage housebuilders to build more housing of all tenures."
She said it was cheaper for a developer to build student housing than traditional housing. "We need to rebalance that and that is the way we deliver more housing."
Reform candidate Gary Neill said the council had a lot of land and buildings which he said could be used for temporary accommodation, “like a pre-fab city”.
He said: "Not exactly the Dorchester, but it's a solution, instead of moving families around in emergency accommodation, hotels, HMOs." But he added the best way to alleviate homelessness was to have a strong, robust economy.
A representative standing in for Green candidate Lorna Slater said as well as building new homes, existing homes that were outside the housing supply should be brought back in. He said the Greens’ plans included forcing absentee landlords sitting on land or buildings to sell them for rent or to be sold.