Scottish Labour in Edinburgh have just released their manifesto for the local government elections in May. It asserts that Short-Term Lets “ have been hollowing out our historic city” and have “reduced the number of homes available for purchase or rent by long term tenants and pushed up prices and rents to levels that local people can’t afford.”
In terms of policy commitments, they want a “balance” between tourism and residents by:
- Using the new planning and licensing powers to control the numbers of short term lets in the city, and put in place effective enforcement.
- Ensuring that all Council planning and licensing policies give substantial weight to the needs of residents while still encouraging business and tourism.
They also want to:
- Put pressure on the Scottish Government to use the landlord registration and licensing systems (for HMOs and short term lets) to place obligations on landlords to upgrade energy efficiency.
- Make Edinburgh a short term letting control zone to limit the numbers of short term lets and pressure the Scottish Government to strengthen the licensing scheme to allow councils to limit the number of licences.
The manifesto is available to view here: https://drscottarthur.files.wordpress.com/2022/03/ed_lab_manifesto_v4_mar22.pdf
