Edinburgh housing crisis 'only getting worse', Living Rent says

These are campaigners' worries after Edinburgh was named home to all 10 of Scotland’s “most expensive streets”.

Even on a longer list of Scotland’s 25 most expensive streets, only three are outside the capital, according to a Bank of Scotland review.

The bank ranked Ann Street in Stockbridge as the most expensive in Scotland, with the average asking price of a property at £1.7 million.

Wester Coates Avenue and Regent Terrace, which came in second and third respectively, are priced at more than £1.6m and £1.5m respectively.

Living Rent said these stats could spell more bad news for Edinburgh’s housing crisis.

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Meg Bishop, the union’s secretary, said the prices reiterate the scale of the housing crisis “that everyone feels in the city”.

She said: “With properties going for (almost) £2m, these expensive streets have had a knock-on impact on housing across the city and with it, rents which have increased by over 63% over the last ten years for a two-bed home.

“As stats like those above demonstrate, the housing crisis in Edinburgh is only getting worse.”

Bishop said there is a desperate need for a points-based system of rent controls to bring prices down for anyone to stand a chance to afford to rent in the capital, let alone save enough up to buy a home.

Without such measures, she said, Edinburgh will be “a city that is just the playground of the super rich”.

“Who will be able to afford to live, let alone live well, with such prices?” she asked.

The asking prices on the most expensive streets, Bishop added, further reveal the wealth and housing inequality that exists in the capital.

As properties on these streets sell for just under £2m, tenants from “just ten minutes down the road” are fighting a years-long battle for the council to deal with mould which is making their children ill, Bishop said.

She went on: “Inadequate social and private rented sector homes are streets behind these luxury areas.

“Tenants need rent controls and more money invested in social housing or the inequalities in housing will only get wider.”

Ben Parker, the Greens’ co-convenor on Edinburgh Council, said having Scotland’s ten most expensive streets all located in the capital is not something to celebrate, but only underlines the massive wealth inequalities in the city.

“Whilst a minority spend millions on housing, many people in the city are struggling to pay high rents, inflated by profiteering landlords,” he said.

“Evidence shows that unequal societies are bad for everyone and this is yet another report which shows the desperate need for the council and government to do more to support people on lower incomes, tackle inequality and get a grip on our broken housing system.”

Edinburgh City Council said the capital is the Scottish Government’s lowest funded council per head of population, claiming it is “suffering from a chronic lack of support".

Labour’s Cammy Day, the council leader, said the effects of the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis will exacerbate and expand the wealth divide which already exists in the capital without urgent action.

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He said: “It is the priority of this council to make sure emergency support is in place for those who are most disadvantaged and at risk.

“Edinburgh is a city full of opportunity and success yet for far too many people, for far too long, this city’s prospects haven’t been shared equally.

“There is already massive pressure on the city’s housing market with limited homes for social rent, house prices, and rents having hit unprecedented rates in recent years, and the council’s finances increasingly stretched.”

Through its affordable house-building programme, and by creating places for people to spend quality time at home and with their neighbours, Day said the council is transforming residents’ lives.

Day (above) went on: “We’re making real progress with this, with hundreds of new quality homes being completed and under construction across the city, and we’re investing record levels in our existing housing stock.

“We are committed to further increasing the amount of good quality affordable homes available in Edinburgh, should government support us.”

A spokesperson from the council said they are determined to tackle Edinburgh’s rent, housing, and energy crises.

They said: “Throughout it all, we must keep making the case to the Scottish Government for Edinburgh to receive the funding this council desperately needs and which Edinburgh’s people desperately deserve.

“With greater funding for homes, we can fulfill our house-building ambitions and in so doing improve the quality of local people’s lives and their communities.”