Sixth Scottish council declares housing emergency

Sixth Scottish council declares housing emergency

0:01 AM, 31st May 2024, About 4 months ago 1

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West Lothian Council has declared a housing emergency, citing the mounting pressures on housing and homelessness due to an imbalance between supply and demand.

The move comes after the Scottish government declared a housing emergency earlier this month.

The council says the Housing (Scotland) Bill introduced in March is expected to add more pressure on housing and homelessness.

Imbalance between supply and demand

The council is juggling a staggering 11,269 council housing applications, with more than 350 new applications pouring in every month.

The council is also dealing with 1,392 homeless cases.

Executive councillor for housing George Paul said: “The imbalance between supply and demand for permanent social rented accommodation continues to be a key challenge in West Lothian.

“Our housing staff carry out an amazing job of preventing homelessness and supporting those who seek housing, with the limitations they face.

“There remains a high number of people applying to the council for permanent housing through the council’s allocations policy, as well as accommodation required for homeless applicants to enable the council to discharge is statutory homeless duty.

“By declaring a Housing Emergency, we aim to acknowledge the scale of the issue in West Lothian and appeal for the additional support we need to try and tackle the issues.”

The council will now write to the Scottish government minister for housing, Paul McLennan MSP, to advise of the declaration of the Housing Emergency in West Lothian and request an urgent meeting.

Words must be followed by actions

Timothy Douglas, head of policy and campaigns at Propertymark says Scotland is now at a crossroads in addressing its housing crisis.

He said: “We are now at a pivotal moment where the housing situation across Scotland has turned critical, and there needs to be immediate and practical action to deescalate the issue.

“For many years housing supply has not kept pace with demand and this has contributed to higher costs for all consumers and a near unworkable situation for many agents and their landlords.”

Mr Douglas is calling for the Scottish government to resolve the housing crisis.

He adds: “The overall situation has not been helped by covid and the cost-of-living crisis, but we are now seeing a situation where the basic maths places the prospect of owning a home way out of limits for most people.

“We are also witnessing a disturbing number of local authorities placed under unfeasible pressure to provide temporary accommodation with a system that is now at absolute breaking point.

“Words must now be followed by actions and solving the housing emergency must be front and centre of the SNP administration’s programme for government.”


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12:36 PM, 31st May 2024, About 4 months ago

"Mr Douglas is calling for the Scottish government to resolve the housing crisis."

What Mr Douglas fails to realise is that the Scottish government has caused the housing crisis.

There's a story here about a landlord providing social housing whose portfolio was repossessed because of a change in government policy.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/property/buying-selling/landlord-repossessed-mortgage-arrears-rent/

According to the article his homes were repossessed even though across the board his LTV ratio was 50%. What triggered the crisis was the response of the financial services industry to a change in government policy.

The SNP government has made investing in providing housing for social housing tenants unattractive. They haven't got the money to fix it and the only way they can fix it is with the help of the PRS.

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