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Category: Policy

£1 Million Grant for Self-Catering Businesses

£1 Million Grant for Self-Catering Businesses

VisitScotland and the Association of Scotland’s Self-Caterers were delighted to have announced a £1 million Scottish Government grant available for self-catering businesses in Scotland, in August 2020.

Our economy has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and this new fund was made available to help alleviate the hardship some self-catering businesses are facing.

This new fund was made available for businesses who hadn’t received any support via other funds as a result of the current pandemic. Applicants were eligible to receive a one-off grant of £10,000.

Businesses across Scotland have faced unprecedented challenges as a result of COVID-19 and we worked with VisitScotland to support Scotland’s £723 million self-catering sector. Our goal continues to be to ensure that tourism rebounds to be one of the most successful sectors of the Scottish economy once again.

Applications for the new Coronavirus (COVID-19) Support Scheme for Self-Catering businesses, which will be administered by VisitScotland, will go live on Monday 3 August at 9am.

The fund was delivered through a partnership between the Association of Scotland’s Self-Caterers (ASSC) and VisitScotland to those businesses which have been unable to benefit from any financial support during the Covid-19 crisis.

Scotland’s national tourism organisation administered the cash through a central email system and took responsibility for getting the money to the operators who needed it. The ASSC reviewed applications alongside VisirScotland and helped make decisions on which applications were successful.

Scotland’s self-caterers were among the first to shut down their businesses as the country went into lockdown, with operators making significant financial and personal sacrifices as part of the effort against COVID-19. Many also played a key role in supporting frontline health workers during the pandemic, providing free or discounted stays for NHS staff.

Throughout the pandemic, the ASSC has worked tirelessly to ensure that Scotland’s hardworking operators were not left behind in terms of accessing business support grants. Alongside work to remove inequities in the system. This new fund for self-caterers is the culmination of those assiduous efforts.

ASSC Chief Executive, Fiona Campbell, said:

“The ASSC has doggedly and persistently fought the corner of our members on business support grants. We are therefore delighted to see this fund being launched and welcome everything that it will do to help Scotland’s £723m self-catering sector.

“Scotland’s self-caterers have sacrificed so much to help the country suppress the virus and we will continue to do our bit to keep everyone safe now that the tourism sector has reopened to visitors.

“The ASSC is also thrilled to be working with our trusted, valued, and cherished partners at VisitScotland and we can’t wait to get started to get the funds to deserving, professional self-catering businesses.”

Short-Term Letting and the Housing Crisis

Short-Term Letting and the Housing Crisis

In recent times, the self-catering and short-term letting sector has been used as a convenient scapegoat for longstanding failures in housing policy. However, the challenges facing Scotland are far more multifaceted than the existence and growth of short-term and holiday lets alone.

There have been concerns raised over the impact of increasing tourism and the growth of short-term lets on the housing market, particularly on some communities within City of Edinburgh Council and Highland Council areas. In response, the Scottish Government has announced proposals to regulate short-term lets, including the introduction of a licensing regime.

In taking forward measures to regulate the sector, the ASSC argue that any policies must be based on accurate, reliable and empirical data given the importance of tourism to the Scottish economy. That has always guided our approach.

In February 2020, the ASSC launched a paper: Short-Term Letting and the Housing Crisis, which builds on our commitment to ensure that housing challenges are viewed in a balanced and holistic context. Our paper highlights the following:

  • The number of self-catering units registered on the Business Rates Roll compared to those on the Council Tax Register in two key areas, or indeed ‘hot spots’: Edinburgh and Skye.
  • Data from Airbnb, the industry leader in terms of accommodation platforms in Scotland, who have provided background on their number of listings.
  • Finally, information on the number of second and empty homes in Scotland.

As the leading trade association for the traditional holiday and short-term let sector, the ASSC values the opportunity to engage in holistic and evidence-based discussions about housing in Scotland.

The ASSC supports sustainable tourism and the managed growth of the short-term letting sector in Scotland. Short term rentals are not new and have a long history in Scotland but recent political and media scrutiny has been almost exclusively negative in tone and does not provide an accurate picture of our sector and the role it plays in the tourist economy.

As our research has demonstrated, there are almost five times as many empty homes than self-catering units across Scotland and Airbnb represents only 1% of the housing stock in Scotland. There is a lack of quantitative evidence demonstrating that short-term lets are a significant or primary driver of increased rents, are affecting housing supply, or are pushing up house prices. When housing demand and the level of empty housing is set against the number of self-catering units, it suggests self-catering activity is not of a scale sufficient to affect housing supply issues in Scotland.

Overall, the ASSC maintains that more needs to be done to address the problem of empty homes in Scotland when policymakers focus on tackling Scotland’s housing challenges. Ultimately, building too few homes remains the core cause of Scotland’s housing problems, not the holiday let sector.

Read the full paper: Short Term Letting and the Housing Crisis