Rural Housing Seminar
I propose that we get started. As our draft budget report is on the agenda for consideration in private, Jan Polley is attending the meeting, although a substantial part of the agenda will not concern her.
I remind committee members to switch their mobile phones and pagers off or to flight mode, depending on which is easiest and most convenient. Whatever they do, committee members should not put such equipment anywhere near the microphones.
I welcome everybody to the meeting. Agenda item 1 is a quick discussion of the rural housing seminar on 10 December in Aviemore, which most of us attended. A paper about the day has been circulated to committee members. It does not go into an enormous amount of detail, but we will have a much more detailed paper and a proposed approach to our inquiry for our next meeting on 9 January. Today's paper is just a quick summary of what happened at the seminar.
Once First ScotRail had deigned to get half the members and half the delegates to the seminar considerably later than was originally anticipated, the day went well. There was a lot of good discussion and it was particularly helpful that each of the break-out groups discussed all the options. That gave us a better sense of where the consensus would be.
The interesting prioritisation exercise that we did at the end threw up some slightly unusual results in respect of what we might have anticipated before we set out on our work on rural housing. The fact that the role of the planning system and land supply came first and second was not a surprise.
That financial considerations came third in the list was perhaps a surprise to those of us who have over the years become accustomed to hearing stories about water and sewerage infrastructure and environmental issues. There seems to be a feeling that those issues are on their way to being resolved, so financial considerations were given greater priority.
In fourth place was the issue of mechanisms to keep housing affordable, which in a sense is similar to the financial considerations issue. A variety of other priorities were identified, but the exercise did not come out exactly as we might have anticipated. In my view, that justifies our having held the event: I suspect that, had we simply sat round the committee table and decided on the key issues, we would have rushed to include infrastructure as part of the inquiry. However, it turns out that, in reality, that did not prove to be such a big issue.
As not all members made it to the event, I ask those who were there to comment or give their impressions—that would be useful. I do not want to spend too much time on the issue, because we will come back to it in detail later.
I concur entirely with the convener's remarks about the value of the event. I, too, was slightly surprised by the placing in the prioritisation exercise of water and sewerage infrastructure issues, but I suspect that one reason for that is the number of people who were there from the Highlands, where a particular mechanism has been adopted. The Highland Housing Alliance is a co-operative mechanism, which may have given those people the view—which you have rightly reflected, convener—that the issue is on the way to being resolved. In our inquiry, we should find out how that has been achieved, so that the practice can be shared. Although the issue is not a high priority in the list, we should find out exactly what lies behind that.
During the seminar, several people commented about the international experience and asked why other countries do not appear to have the same problems as we have. I suspect that, at root, it is partly to do with land ownership issues in other countries. Although information and research came bottom of the pile of priorities, it would nonetheless be worth having some international comparisons of rural housing policy.
As confirmation of the point about infrastructure issues, on Friday, at a presentation by Perth and Kinross Council on housing—not just rural housing—it was reiterated that the Scottish Water issue is well on the way to being resolved. It looks as if that result might be more widespread.
I am surprised by the placing of water and sewerage issues in the list of priorities. Like Peter Peacock, I wonder whether it could be to do with the geographic location of the event, because water and sewerage infrastructure certainly appears to be an issue elsewhere. I am pleased to hear that it is about to be resolved and I will be delighted if that is the case.
I am surprised that the supply of land was so far up the agenda. From what I can gather from discussions that I have had with landowners, particularly the Scottish Estates Business Group, land is available. No one would be happier than landowners to provide land for housing—the big issue seems to be planning.
It is fair to say that the two issues are closely interlinked. The Scottish Estates Business Group was represented at the event.
I, too, agree with what has been said. I am surprised that the supply of land came so high up the agenda, as I have never come across that as an issue. I am also surprised that water issues came seventh on the list. Those were the two surprises for me. We must take the results with a pinch of salt, given the location of the event. I have gone through the list of delegates, which shows that 21 of the 53 attendees were from the Highlands. That may have skewed the result.
Yes—although we were considering rural housing specifically.
Yes, but the inquiry is not just for the Highlands—that is the point.
We had a much wider spread of people—there were people from places such as Dumfries and Galloway.
Absolutely, but 21 of the 53 attendees were from the Highlands.
The supply of land came up quite a bit in my workshop group and it seems to be a fairly complex issue. One problem that we talked about was that there seems to be a misunderstanding of what affordable housing means and who will be in it. Some estates have apparently withdrawn offers of land when they heard that it was to be used for affordable housing. The supply of land seems to be a fairly complex issue.
The issue is obviously worthy of further investigation.
I was just making an observation.
The fact that the issue has been put as high as it has suggests that we need to consider it. I do not think that it stands alone; it probably ties in with a number of other issues, such as financial considerations.
I thank everybody who was there that day for the work that they did in facilitating and keeping the discussion moving. We will get a much more detailed paper for 9 January, when we will put out the call for written evidence and launch the inquiry.
I referred earlier to First ScotRail not delivering half the delegates and a number of committee members on time. I thank Peter Peacock for kicking off the conference on time, to make up for the gap in the morning, and for ensuring that the initial part of the conference was not delayed because of the late arrival of a number of us.