Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work Convener, Cllr Tim Pogson writes in today's Edinburgh Evening News.
In November 2023, we took the significant step of declaring a housing emergency here in Edinburgh – the first city in Scotland to do so.
Our city continues to face unprecedented demand for housing, amidst challenging market conditions, ongoing budget pressures and insufficient funding from the Scottish Government. Declaring an emergency was a call to action and now over two years on, there is clear evidence that this call is being answered.
The Council’s Housing Emergency Action Plan (HEAP) provides a focused and pragmatic response. Built around two themes – increasing housing supply and addressing demand for housing – the plan recognises both the immediate pressures facing households and the structural challenges that have built up over many years.
I’m pleased to report that progress against both of these themes has been considerable over the past 12 months.
I should say that this is completely at odds with some of the misleading commentary we’ve seen in the media and elsewhere – based it would seem on a complete (and in some cases wilful) misinterpretation of council reporting. To be absolutely clear, the Council does not have a £60 million underspend in housing and, no, we won’t be giving it to Glasgow.
This fictitious figure came from the sum of £45 million for temporary accommodation, which are now being purchased from a different fund, and £15m to reflect a revised spending profile across a number of new housing developments, all of which are still progressing to plan. In short, the money is being spent and the houses built.
This year alone, the Council has completed construction of 459 new homes and purchased of an additional 278 ‘off the shelf’. This represents the single biggest annual increase in our housing stock in recent years and more than double the amount delivered in any of the last five years.
Major development milestones have also been reached across the city, with business cases approved for Granton Waterfont (phase 1), Fountainbridge and Meadowbank – which together will deliver 2,000 new homes for the city.
We’ve also reduced the number of void properties by over 60% from when the Housing Emergency was declared, making more homes available to let – bringing much needed homes back into use.
Looking forward, our ambitious budget strategy, which councillors will debate on 26 February, places housing at the heart of our plans, with a £1.6 billion investment in affordable homes proposed over the next five years. This would represent one of the largest housing interventions by a local authority in modern times, and all deliverable before the Scottish Government’s new Home Agency even puts a spade in the ground.
While there is still much to do, the progress we’ve made in tackling the housing emergency shows that sustained action, partnership working, and political commitment can make a real difference. Pressures remain acute, and the scale of the challenge should not be underestimated, but our direction of travel is clear.