Group invites MSP to talks on empty rural properties
THE NATIONAL body representing many Scottish land and estate owners has offered to meet with Highlands MSP Kate Forbes over moves to bring more derelict rural properties into use.
Scottish Land & Estates’ comments came after Ms Forbes welcomed Scottish Government plans to help tackle rural housing shortages. And the organisation says it will be happy to meet with the Skye Lochaber and Badenoch MSP to discuss the issue.
Ms Forbes said depopulation of Highland communities continues to be one of the barriers to economic growth, with her own constituency containing many empty buildings.
‘A single sprawling estate might have half a dozen farmhouses, an assortment of byres and steadings, a scattering of cottages, a gatehouse or two or even an old mill all sitting empty,’ she said.
‘But while an abandoned croft house might be a haunting sight on a picture-postcard Highland hillside, for me it should provoke a less wistful, more pragmatic response. Let’s turn these houses back into homes. It’s time to bring them back into action to provide much-needed homes for young people in rural Scotland.’
Asked for its views, Katy Dickson, senior policy officer at Scottish Land and Estates, said many of the organisation’s members were at the forefront of rural housing provision, often providing more homes at affordable rates than local authorities. In recent years, we have seen schemes such as Rural Homes for Rent, which we developed alongside the Scottish Government, allow housing to be developed for local families, but successor schemes from the government have proved administratively cumbersome,’ she said. ‘We would welcome anything that streamlines the process of bringing buildings back into use for modern homes and we would be delighted to meet Ms Forbes to discuss how this can be achieved.’
Ms Forbes repeated her call for action on rural housing when she opened the Highlands Small Communities Housing Trust (HSCHT) annual conference in Inverness on Friday.
She told delegates: ‘Housing is the single, most frequently raised issue with me. And in the Highlands, it is unequivocally the cornerstone of growth and sustainability. It is the cornerstone of the local economy, families, schools and communities.
‘Since being elected I have made it my mission to impress upon government colleagues that the Highlands and Islands of Scotland is not a lifeless museum. It can and should be a vibrant and thriving region which leads the nation in homegrown enterprise, attracting investment and nurturing talent.’
Ms Forbes added the Scottish Government will consult on how best to adapt what she termed Scotland’s ‘imperfect and sometimes clunky’ planning process to allow this to happen.