Councillors unanimously agreed to declare a local housing emergency in East Renfrewshire at a meeting of the full council yesterday (Wednesday, September 11).

The local authority said that over recent years it has seen a significant increase in homeless applications, which has had an impact on both the demand for services and how services are being delivered.

Since 2018, homeless applications “have jumped by 53%, in comparison to just a 10% increase Scotland-wide.”

As it stands, there are 350 households accepted as homeless and awaiting an offer of accommodation, and almost 200 households in temporary accommodation, including those in bed and breakfasts.

Councillor Danny Devlin, housing and environment convener, said: “Declaring a housing emergency isn’t a decision we’ve taken lightly.

“The increase in homelessness over the past five years has continued and has grown at significantly higher rates than the national average.

“The situation is exacerbated here in East Renfrewshire as it remains an extremely popular place to live and the local housing market is not equipped to deal with this increase in demand.

“We’ve actions in place to work towards mitigating the pressures and will continue to work with partners to prioritise actions and develop plans to tackle the crisis over the coming months and years.”

The emergency has been declared despite the council delivering more than 470 new-build homes since 2018, which includes bringing forward the provision of 105 new properties in Maidenhill this year.

Earlier this year, the Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) stated that several Scottish local authorities are facing “systemic failure” of their homelessness services and this includes East Renfrewshire.

The main issue for the SHR is the use of hotel accommodation, which is deemed as unsuitable in most circumstances, and an absence of sufficient suitable alternative accommodation.

East Renfrewshire is the twelfth local authority to declare a housing emergency, as well as the Scottish Government who did so in May this year.

The local housing market, however, makes it challenging to respond to this increased and sustained demand.

The area has very high owner-occupation levels and the smallest percentage of social housing in mainland Scotland.

According to the council, only 11.4% of homes in East Renfrewshire make up social housing stock (approximately 4,200 homes), whereas the Scottish average is 22.9%.

Furthermore, the number of council homes becoming available for new tenants, through people moving out for example, has reduced over the past five years from around 260 to 190 homes per year.

This is approximately half of the typical rate elsewhere in Scotland.

The council said it has been anticipating this emergency and over the past few years has implemented a number of actions to respond and mitigate the impact of this issue.

These include doubling the provision of temporary accommodation from re-designation of some of their own permanent general needs stock from around 60 units in 2019/20 to more than 130 units currently in use.

Further actions include increasing the percentage of lets to homeless households to 70% for existing stock and 40% for new build accommodation.

The council also said it has reviewed existing agreements with local registered social landlords and is reviewing internal process to focus on a prevention approach.

Council Leader Owen O’Donnell added: “This emergency situation has been growing over recent years and our declaration is now unavoidable.

"While we’ve made progress in increasing our housing stock through nearly 480 new build properties, it’s clear we can’t build our way out of this problem and that to have a substantial and systemic impact and to clear the backlog of presenting cases, significant investment in grant funding and associated borrowing across all tenures will be required."