Councillor for Leith, Katrina Faccenda
Housing is a UK wide problem but as a Labour Councillor representing Leith in Edinburgh, I am going to draw a lot of my comments from the current situation in my area and Edinburgh. In Edinburgh the New Town was built in the 18/19th centuries so that the wealthy could leave the overcrowded medieval closes. By the middle of the 19th century the life expectancy of New Town residents was twice that of the old town, a stone’s throw from one another, they became an inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Edinburgh remains that city of extremes. Edinburgh’s average income is 27% higher than the Scottish average, but in my ward 24% people are living in poverty, compared to 3% in Morningside.
But just as the slums have been cleared from the old town, so have the tight knit communities who once lived there, from the Canongate to the Southside. Such is the impact of social cleansing and the difficulty of living in areas of over-tourism. One of the community councils which failed to pass the minimum threshold of nominees was Old Town. There are other things to say about community councils and how they engage, but much of the organising behind the Save People’s Story campaign came from local groups.
What was most worrying aspects about the 8 of 46 community councils which did not form is that these included areas most in need of a voice – Craigmillar, West Pilton/West Granton.
The current housing crisis has its origins with right to buy. In 1976, 54% of Scottish homes were social housing, which confirms that we aren’t wrong when we recall it being the norm for folk to live in a council house. That has halved and now sits at 24% and that 24% is made up of a mixture of social landlords and councils. That enormous loss of assets and the subsequent commodification of property and soaring rents cannot be reversed without central government intervention.
More recently over-tourism and the growing student population has hollowed out Edinburgh’s city centre and Southside as well as spreading out to other working-class areas like Gorgie and Dalry, Leith Walk and Leith.
In 2005 there were 7,350 Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) bedspaces in Edinburgh and in 2024 there were 22,310, about 50:50 university to private. There are also several large developments which have been granted planning permission but are still to be built.
In 2023 in central Edinburgh – Southside and Newington ward, only 703 homes were given planning permission compared to 2500 student flats.
Edinburgh has the third highest proportion of university students per 1000 of the population and second highest percentage of non-UK students. I am not going to say that all students are affluent but the prospects of many young people in Edinburgh compared to this community are stark.
As a Councillor in Leith my casework is dominated by housing related issues: people in unsuitable temporary accommodation; the impact of over proliferation of dodgy hotels providing temporary accommodation; the consequences of having so many vulnerable and distressed people in one area. Then there is poor maintenance of council houses or overcrowding in council and other social housing. Edinburgh lags the rest of Scotland with only 15% social housing. Glasgow, by contrast has 34% and our soaring property prices mean an average house now costs £338,000.
There is endless building across the north of the city but they are not building the houses people need, instead PBSA, build to rent and mid-market rent dominates these projects. And, of course, in spite of the recent licensing of short term lets, which has brought back accommodation into long term rent, those rents are inflated by high demand.
The jury is out on whether the current Housing Bill will bring the workable rent control we need.
But I want to go back to council housing, which I believe is the only solution for a problem of this scale. As far as I can see no Party in Holyrood recognises this and has a strategy to fund it.
We must stop subsidising the private sector. The average spend in Edinburgh for a new build council house is £285,000. Since January 2023 we have spent nearly £1bn on a mere 335 homes, but we are buying new-builds at allegedly discounted prices.
There are 24,000 people on the council house waiting list and an average of 243 bids for every property and we have just over 20, 000 council houses and in 2023-24 we completed only 77 new homes.
If we are going to train building workers, they should be our council workers. We need to develop national expertise to be shared across councils to build.
Some of Edinburgh’s visitor levy will go to housing but to stay within Scottish Government regulations, it will have to be for those who work in the visitor economy. It is complicated and the amount of money that will be made available will hardly touch the sides of the crisis.
With a housing crisis of this size, house building will create long term jobs for directly employed workers and once a house is built it is an asset, it can be used as collateral to borrow more for continued investment.
But we also have to look at adapting unused buildings into housing and getting unused houses back into use. Environmentally, we need to stop demolishing and above all we need public control and an end to extraction and profiteering.
The “builders not blockers” narrative being pushed by the current UK government is principally about enabling profiteers and as we know in Edinburgh, it isn’t about the number of houses we build but building the houses that people need and can afford.
In Leith the number of council houses, some of them listed buildings, stops the displacement of a core part of the community. There are nearly 300 flats in Cables Wynd House (Banana Flats) which, as an A listed building, is about to be retrofitted and will stay as council houses. It is the best example of how social housing can protect residents in gentrifying neighbourhoods from rising rents and displacement. The choice to demolish so many high-rise blocks like, the Wyndford in Glasgow, smacks of class prejudice. Many of the problems with blocks like the Wyndford, is down to poor maintenance and other social problems. When they are well maintained, tower blocks can be great homes.
Of course, there are then issues of conflict between the working class community in areas like Leith, which reflects the diversity that has always been part of Leith, and the new Leithers who can see the multi storey flats and council house residents and their lifestyles, as a blight on their new “hip” neighbourhood.
Up to now we still have shops that cater to all residents, but there are many artisan coffee shops and bakeries which will leave many feeling that they are being excluded. And there are also issues around acceptable behaviour, with new residents finding it difficult to deal with some of the more colourful sides of life in Leith. If we don’t solve housing across the UK we cannot tackle poverty, but we will not do that through relaxing planning rules or enabling the private sector. The opposite is the case. The reason that we are in this mess is because the governments of Scotland and the UK have adopted strategies which always benefit the private sector.
This post is based on a talk Katrina gave to the Morning Star Conference at the STUC, Glasgow on Sunday 23rd March.
But just as the slums have been cleared from the old town, so have the tight knit communities who once lived there, from the Canongate to the Southside. Such is the impact of social cleansing and the difficulty of living in areas of over-tourism. One of the community councils which failed to pass the minimum threshold of nominees was Old Town. There are other things to say about community councils and how they engage, but much of the organising behind the Save People’s Story campaign came from local groups.
What was most worrying aspects about the 8 of 46 community councils which did not form is that these included areas most in need of a voice – Craigmillar, West Pilton/West Granton.
The current housing crisis has its origins with right to buy. In 1976, 54% of Scottish homes were social housing, which confirms that we aren’t wrong when we recall it being the norm for folk to live in a council house. That has halved and now sits at 24% and that 24% is made up of a mixture of social landlords and councils. That enormous loss of assets and the subsequent commodification of property and soaring rents cannot be reversed without central government intervention.
More recently over-tourism and the growing student population has hollowed out Edinburgh’s city centre and Southside as well as spreading out to other working-class areas like Gorgie and Dalry, Leith Walk and Leith.
In 2005 there were 7,350 Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) bedspaces in Edinburgh and in 2024 there were 22,310, about 50:50 university to private. There are also several large developments which have been granted planning permission but are still to be built.
In 2023 in central Edinburgh – Southside and Newington ward, only 703 homes were given planning permission compared to 2500 student flats.
Edinburgh has the third highest proportion of university students per 1000 of the population and second highest percentage of non-UK students. I am not going to say that all students are affluent but the prospects of many young people in Edinburgh compared to this community are stark.
As a Councillor in Leith my casework is dominated by housing related issues: people in unsuitable temporary accommodation; the impact of over proliferation of dodgy hotels providing temporary accommodation; the consequences of having so many vulnerable and distressed people in one area. Then there is poor maintenance of council houses or overcrowding in council and other social housing. Edinburgh lags the rest of Scotland with only 15% social housing. Glasgow, by contrast has 34% and our soaring property prices mean an average house now costs £338,000.
There is endless building across the north of the city but they are not building the houses people need, instead PBSA, build to rent and mid-market rent dominates these projects. And, of course, in spite of the recent licensing of short term lets, which has brought back accommodation into long term rent, those rents are inflated by high demand.
The jury is out on whether the current Housing Bill will bring the workable rent control we need.
But I want to go back to council housing, which I believe is the only solution for a problem of this scale. As far as I can see no Party in Holyrood recognises this and has a strategy to fund it.
We must stop subsidising the private sector. The average spend in Edinburgh for a new build council house is £285,000. Since January 2023 we have spent nearly £1bn on a mere 335 homes, but we are buying new-builds at allegedly discounted prices.
There are 24,000 people on the council house waiting list and an average of 243 bids for every property and we have just over 20, 000 council houses and in 2023-24 we completed only 77 new homes.
If we are going to train building workers, they should be our council workers. We need to develop national expertise to be shared across councils to build.
Some of Edinburgh’s visitor levy will go to housing but to stay within Scottish Government regulations, it will have to be for those who work in the visitor economy. It is complicated and the amount of money that will be made available will hardly touch the sides of the crisis.
With a housing crisis of this size, house building will create long term jobs for directly employed workers and once a house is built it is an asset, it can be used as collateral to borrow more for continued investment.
But we also have to look at adapting unused buildings into housing and getting unused houses back into use. Environmentally, we need to stop demolishing and above all we need public control and an end to extraction and profiteering.
The “builders not blockers” narrative being pushed by the current UK government is principally about enabling profiteers and as we know in Edinburgh, it isn’t about the number of houses we build but building the houses that people need and can afford.
In Leith the number of council houses, some of them listed buildings, stops the displacement of a core part of the community. There are nearly 300 flats in Cables Wynd House (Banana Flats) which, as an A listed building, is about to be retrofitted and will stay as council houses. It is the best example of how social housing can protect residents in gentrifying neighbourhoods from rising rents and displacement. The choice to demolish so many high-rise blocks like, the Wyndford in Glasgow, smacks of class prejudice. Many of the problems with blocks like the Wyndford, is down to poor maintenance and other social problems. When they are well maintained, tower blocks can be great homes.
Of course, there are then issues of conflict between the working class community in areas like Leith, which reflects the diversity that has always been part of Leith, and the new Leithers who can see the multi storey flats and council house residents and their lifestyles, as a blight on their new “hip” neighbourhood.
Up to now we still have shops that cater to all residents, but there are many artisan coffee shops and bakeries which will leave many feeling that they are being excluded. And there are also issues around acceptable behaviour, with new residents finding it difficult to deal with some of the more colourful sides of life in Leith. If we don’t solve housing across the UK we cannot tackle poverty, but we will not do that through relaxing planning rules or enabling the private sector. The opposite is the case. The reason that we are in this mess is because the governments of Scotland and the UK have adopted strategies which always benefit the private sector.
This post is based on a talk Katrina gave to the Morning Star Conference at the STUC, Glasgow on Sunday 23rd March.
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