Tough task ahead for new council leader Jane Meagher - Susan Dalgety

Former Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work Convener Cllr Jane Meagher is the new council leader

But even though I stand by my view that she should have interrupted her extended break in Africa to take part in the leadership election, and my disquiet at her having to be goaded into telling her fellow councillors why they should vote for her, I wish her well.

Edinburgh needs her to succeed and in particular the thousands of people locked out of affordable housing need Cllr Meagher to be a better council leader than she was chair of housing.

There will be many challenges on her desk when she eventually returns to the City Chambers, not least the impending budget where she will have to use all her political and personal skills to unite the majority of councillors behind Labour’s spending plans.

There is the Colinton-Fairmilehead by election on 23 January where two new councillors will be elected. It will be a New Year miracle if Labour manages to win one of the seats.

Councillor Meagher’s elevation is unlikely to have any influence over the result, but she will have to manage the fall-out from defeat. The ten-strong Labour group is divided and still in shock following their former leader’s resignation over allegations of sexual harassment.

But nothing is more pressing than the housing emergency facing our city. There are far too many people living in homeless accommodation, far too many folk crammed into inadequate, and illegal, houses of multiple occupation. Far too many young people unable to leave home because rents are out of reach, and far too many families stopped from buying a home of their own because house prices are through the roof.

Housing must be Cllr Meagher’s priority. She and the city’s new housing chief Cllr Lezley Cameron must first unite the council around a mission to solve the city’s housing emergency, then bring together the private sector, construction industry and the Scottish government to fix the problem. It won’t be easy. But it must happen.