Fife Council 'breaking the law' by using unsuitable homes

These are all things that are being considered as part of Fife’s housing emergency action plan which will be presented at the next Cabinet Committee meeting on June 6.

It’s in response to the council’s official emergency housing declaration in March. However, the Fife Partnership Board was given a sneak peak of the draft action plan on Tuesday.

It will have three key elements to boost affordable housing; make the best use of existing properties; and prevent homelessness.

It’s meant to help Fife meet its legal housing duties; increase its short term housing supply, make the best use of its resources, and build and maintain momentum.

“This is not just a homelessness emergency – this has to be a broad brushed housing emergency to try and tackle the lack of housing or existing housing conditions,” John Mills, Fife’s head of housing, said.

Mr Mills described Fife’s housing emergency declaration as a political decision based on what’s been “a very pressurised housing situation in Fife and in Scotland for many years”.

There are a lot of issues feeding into Fife’s ongoing housing crisis. For one thing, Mr Mills said that turnover rates are still recovering. Prior to the pandemic, Fife Council was seeing around 2,500 vacancies and re-lets in one year.

“That dropped to 1700 during the pandemic. It’s slowly recovered to around 2200, but we’ve still got that gap. That’s less housing opportunities for people on the housing and homeless list to move into,” Mr Mills said.

Additionally, he explained that Holyrood’s forthcoming housing bill still proposes some form of national rent controls.

“We have found that has caused, rightly or wrongly, landlords to leave the sector,” Mr Mills said.

“It is absolutely apparent in Fife that landlords are selling properties. They’re giving notice to tenants who are subsequently becoming homeless. That’s a driver for homelessness in Fife.”

He added: “We need a really robust and healthy private rented sector – suitably managed and suitably assisted by local authorities.”

The temporary accommodation situation is a continuing issue as well.

“Temporary accommodation through the pandemic more than doubled, but although it’s doubled we’re still turning people away on a daily basis,” Mr Mills explained.

“It’s improved in the last couple weeks, but over the last three to six months we’ve been breaking the law and certainly housing people in unsuitable accommodations such as B&Bs and hotels.”

He said a key part of the housing emergency action plan is about getting legal.

“I think our chief executive would want us to maintain the law but it’s also about getting folk out of B&Bs and unsuitable accommodation and into much better accommodation that they can set some roots down in and enjoy community facilities, access to GPs and local schools,” he said.

The action plan will also aim to bring empty properties across the Kingdom back into use.

“There are around 2300 empty private sector properties in Fife,” Mr Mills said.

“We are working very closely with private sector landlords and indeed housing associations in Fife to make sure that every empty property is being looked at.

“We need to make best use of our existing housing stock. Wherever there is a house – find it and fill it.”

The full housing emergency action plan will be brought to the Fife Cabinet Committee meeting next month.