Letters: We need more control over sky-high city rents

One reader has had enough of high rents in the Capital. Do you agree that something needs to be done?

Not enough is being done to combat soaring rent writes one of our readers.

Last weekend at the Labour conference in Dundee, Richard Leonard proposed effective legislation to protect tenants. Compare and contrast that with the limp Scottish Government offering of Rent Pressure Zones.

Despite all the evidence about rents in our city, the SNP Government has refused to consider making the whole city such a zone.

The council has to spend time and money doing more research on rent increases and on household incomes to justify zones covering small parts of the city. At the end of all that, any zone will only apply to those who have the new style of tenancy (since December 2017) and landlords will still be able to increase rents between tenants as much as they want.

The legislation is flawed and the guidance issued seems designed to tie councils up in bureaucratic knots.

The SNP yet again is trying to sound radical but is achieving very little.

Scottish Labour’s ‘Mary Barbour Law’ would make a real difference.

The Mary Barbour Law will regulate the private rented sector to ensure that no one is forced to rent a home that pushes them into poverty or falls below the standards needed to protect their physical and mental health.

Marjorie Mackenzie, Grange Loan, Edinburgh