Number of empty council houses beggars belief - John McLellan

Although I spent several years on City of Edinburgh Council’s housing committee, it still came as a shock to learn around 1,500 council houses are currently lying empty.

Living Rent members protest outside the City Chambers

Uncovered by a freedom of information request from the Living Rent campaign, it puts other council policies into perspective, like the huge amount of time, effort and public money spent on cracking down on short-term lets and chasing owners of a relatively small number of uninhabited private properties.

The council seems to think interfering with private property rights is justified if it makes properties available for long-term residential use, either for sale or rent, but that presumes the council is doing as much as it can with its own properties, which from this evidence it is not.

To have 867 homes vacant because they are awaiting repairs is bad enough, but it beggars belief for 653 council properties to lie empty for over a year when there are over 20,000 people on the waiting list for a social home.

Living Rent and other campaigners will probably disagree, but this is one reason why organisations as inherently inefficient as local authorities should not be left to manage housing stock, and much more flexible and focused housing associations are far better equipped to deliver social homes at scale and pace.

It’s the lazy default of Labour and SNP politicians (mostly living in homes they own) to castigate Margaret Thatcher’s Right to Buy programme, but people live in the homes which were sold. If only the council could say the same about the ones it kept.