Housing charity in call for rethink on private renting

A NEW campaign aimed at making Scotland’s burgeoning private rented sector fit for families and fairer for all hit the streets of Kirkcaldy yesterday.

Shelter Scotland’s Rethink Renting campaign is calling for an end to the destructive cycle which sees private tenants forced from pillar to post on short-term tenancy agreements, often as short as six months.

Campaigners from the housing and homelessness charity were in Kirkcaldy High Street to ask the public and local politicians to sign up and support its call to the Scottish Government for positive reform of the sector which is now home to more than 290,000 families and individuals across Scotland.

Shelter Scotland wants the Scottish Government to make private renting affordable, safe, secure and fit for families.

Graeme Brown, director of Shelter Scotland, said: “Short-term tenancy agreements do not provide the stability and security individuals and, in particular, young families, in Kirkcaldy need in order to live a settled life.

“Too often we hear of people being moved on, evicted or rents increased unreasonably, forcing people into the destructive and unsettling cycle of having to move house — every six months in some cases — preventing them from ever being able to put down strong roots or build a stable environment in which to live.

“For many there is no alternative. Frozen out of home-ownership or lingering on the waiting lists for increasingly scarce social homes, they have little option but to rent privately.

“For them, and all private tenants, we want to build a private rented sector that is fit for families and individuals — a sector that provides long-term homes not shortterm housing.”

According to the charity, there are 12,910 families and individuals on the Fife Council waiting list for a home, but only 1,944 new lets were available in 2011-2012. This means that it would take more than six years to clear the current waiting list.

Shelter Scotland says this pressure on the accommodation available leaves those in need of safe, secure and affordable private rents uprooted from their communities and exposed to bad housing and unscrupulous landlords and letting agents.

To sign Shelter Scotland’s petition, visit www.scotland.shelter.org.uk/get_involved/ campaigning/rethink_renting.

Picture: David Wardle. Kirkcaldy MSP David Torrance with Debbie King and Murdo Mathieson of Shelter Scotland.