Living Rent Highlands

Living Rent Highlands petition council calling for visitor levy to address the housing crisis

Transcript

00:00You're from Living Rank Highlands, you've come to Highland Council headquarters to hand in a petition

00:06in response to the consultation about the proposed visitor levy. What are you calling for?

00:14Yeah, so we're calling for an 8% visitor levy with £1.5 million of that money to be used to

00:24build new affordable housing stock, social housing stock and to retrofit existing stock.

00:32There is a housing crisis and a massive shortage of housing in the Inverness and Highlands region

00:40at the moment and there's 8,000 people on the waiting list for social housing and so we at

00:49Living Rent believe that, like in Edinburgh where they ring-fence money for affordable housing,

00:57we should have the same model here where actually money is being used to benefit local people who

01:04work in the local economy. And Fergus, there has been opposition of concerns raised by some

01:13businesses about the introduction of the visitor levy. Why do you feel it's important

01:22not only to introduce it but to set aside 8% to go towards tackling the housing crisis?

01:31So I mean I can sympathise with businesses, any new administration is going to be a cost on

01:37businesses. We don't think it's going to be that much and you know it's fairly negligible in terms

01:43of the overall impact. People are still going to come to the Highlands, it's a wonderful beautiful

01:48part of the world, of course they're going to come here. The housing crisis really is the biggest

01:53crisis we've got in the Highlands at the moment. It's incredibly difficult and certainly the

01:59tourist industry doesn't help in that and particularly short-term lets can have a massive

02:03impact on the housing situation. Also a lot of hospitality businesses are really suffering

02:11themselves from the lack of housing. A lot of them are unable to retain or recruit staff

02:17and that means it's less money for them, they can't get the work done, they can't fulfil the

02:21orders they want to do. That's lost revenue for them, that's lost money in the economy.

02:26The inability of people to work in places means that that's less people in the economy.

02:32In Skye a couple of years ago about 1,700 jobs were reported as not being taken up because of lack

02:38of housing in Skye. That's 1,700 people just on Skye that could have been working in the economy,

02:43could have been contributing, could be living there. I think it's a bit short-term some of

02:49the concerns. I think some of them are justified in the cost of business, I can understand that,

02:54but I think they need to look at the long term. The housing crisis and that crisis we've got

02:59coming up is going to have a massive negative impact on the economy and on the tourism industry

03:04as well and we need people to be able to live. If there's not people working in the tourist

03:09industry there's no one to come to and be greeted by us. Highlands are famous for our hospitality

03:16but you can't have Highland hospitality if Highlanders don't have homes.