SNP hit back at Labour councillor’s bid to declare housing emergency in Fife

“Have they only just noticed?” Fife’s SNP group asked following the motion put forward by Labour’s housing spokesperson Judy Hamilton to be discussed at a meeting of the full council next week.

However, SNP housing spokesperson, Lesley Backhouse and the SNP party bit back at the reasoning and timing behind the motion.

“If there was a time to call a housing emergency, it was in May 2022 when the Council was responding to the sheriff court judgement. If it wasn’t then, it was after the revelation that the council was breaking the law in October 2022,” Cllr Backhouse said. “Instead, the coalition administration appears to be waking up 22 months after the election and have finally noticed there is a housing crisis.”

The SNP group claims it called for an emergency working group immediately following the council elections in May 2022. That call, tit said, was prompted by a sheriff court judgement that forced the council to change how it used temporary accommodation.

Since then, the SNP group said it has demanded action on increasing the number of buy-backs to boost the number of available homes, and since February 2023 they have also continuously highlighted that there were too many empty council houses (voids).

“No doubt Cllrs Hamilton and Calder will claim this is all the fault of the Scottish Government,” Cllr Backhouse continued. “They will ignore the fact the Scottish Government have given Fife Council over £100 million in the last 10 years alone for building council houses and they will ignore the role of the UK government who have both caused rampant inflation in the UK economy and subsequently failed to fund the costs of inflation to the Scottish Government.”

The motion will be discussed on Thursday March 21.