By Bill Heaney
Sad news for Santa Claus lovers is that were the great man himself to to park his sledge on the roofs and climb down the chimneys of thousands of houses in Scotland this Christmas, he would find nobody there to greet him.
Liberal Democrat housing spokesperson Paul McGarry, pictured above, has today accused the SNP of a “massive failure” to tackle the housing crisis after new research by his party uncovered that almost 28,000 houses are lying empty across Scotland.
And at the same time more than 10,000 Scottish children are living in homeless accommodation.
A freedom of information request submitted by Scottish Liberal Democrats asked all 32 of Scotland’s local councils how many possible homes were classed as long-term vacant, meaning they have been empty for longer than 6 months.
The request found that:
- Across the 30 councils with data on how many homes are long-term vacant, there are 27,954 long-term vacant properties.
- There are 3,093 long-term vacant homes in Edinburgh, 2,929 in Aberdeenshire, 2,801 in Glasgow and 2,584 in Argyll & Bute, which includes Helensburgh, Cardross and Lomond.
- Of the councils with data for how long they had been vacant, 1,420 had been vacant for longer than a year, while 2,609 had been vacant for more than 5 years and 5,937 more than 10 years.
- In 2023/24, only 579 properties were brought back into use in Glasgow – just 20% of the number of long-term vacant homes.
- In 2023/24, just 71 properties were brought back into use in Dumfries & Galloway, despite the number of long-term vacant properties being 1,211.
It comes as the numbers of people experiencing homelessness and living in temporary accommodation have reached new highs.
In 2023/24, 10,110 children were in temporary accommodation – the highest number since records began and double the number in 2007, when the SNP came to power. In the same year, there were 40,685 homeless applications recorded- the highest since 2011/12.
Scottish Liberal Democrat housing spokesperson Paul McGarry said: “Under the SNP, there has been a massive failure to tackle Scotland’s housing crisis.
“Tens of thousands of homes are lying empty all while the number of people sleeping rough and moving between temporary accommodation shoots up to record levels. That is just palpably wrong.
“The SNP have made things worse by taking an axe to the housing budget and failing to build the thousands of homes they promised for social rent.
“Scottish Liberal Democrats want to bring thousands of empty homes back into use, maximising existing buildings and stock, as well as building more homes and re-establishing social rent as a viable, long-term option.”