Professor John Robertson OBA

From Finding new owners for empty homes published yesterday:

A new online portal has been launched to bring empty homeowners together with prospective buyers or developers with the aim of facilitating more properties to be used as homes again. 

Covering the whole of Scotland, this builds on the success of local pilots, referred to as “matchmaker schemes”, which allow owners of empty homes to upload details of their properties to a website through which anyone, such as first time buyers, families, developers or local authorities, can make purchasing enquiries.   

The portal is hosted by the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership and has been developed as part of a £2 million investment this year to recruit additional empty homes officers and fund initiatives that will accelerate the pace and numbers of empty homes that are brought back into use.  

We are already making progress in turning around empty properties. Over the past 15 years we have helped return almost 13,000 privately owned homes to use and last year we saw 2,066 homes brought back in a single year, the highest in a year to date.  

More at: https://www.gov.scot/news/finding-new-owners-for-empty-homes/

How well is Scotland doing on increasing access to homes?

In 2023/2024:

Glasgow City Council’s Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP) helped to build over 1,000 [1 011] additional affordable homes in the city in the past year. The original £78.687million grant from the Scottish Government was bolstered during the year by an additional £11.544million to focus on Strategic Acquisitions, and a further £3.825m from the Scottish Government to a final budget of £94.056million.https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/article/12891/Glasgow-s-Affordable-Housing-Supply-Programme-delivered-over-1000-new-affordable-homes-in-last-year

Birmingham City has nearly twice the population [1.16m] , thus revenue, of Glasgow City [622k], so all things being equal, might be expected to have built at least 2 000 new affordable homes, in the same year, but only built 312, between 6 and 7 times fewer: https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/news/birmingham-city-council-announces-plan-to-use-200-vacant-new-build-homes-for-social-housing/5130643.article#:~:text=During%20phase%20one%20of%20the%20regeneration%20scheme%2C%20four,968%20homes%2C%20312%20were%20designated%20as%20affordable%20housing.

If Labour cannot run a major city how can they be expected to run a country?