Bid to declare housing emergency in Dundee could be reconsidered despite being blocked only a month ago

A bid to call for a housing emergency in Dundee could be reconsidered next week, despite the proposal being previously blocked by the SNP administration.

However, days after councillors threw out the initial bid the Scottish Government announced a nationwide housing emergency during a Labour-led debate at Holyrood calling for the move.

The council’s opposition group leaders have since called on the local SNP administration to reverse the decision, which they say has put it “at odds” with its own government.

Now the council’s Labour group leader Kevin Keenan will again put forward proposals calling for an emergency at a neighbourhood regeneration, housing and estate management committee on Monday to be reconsidered.

Councillor Keenan had previously slammed the decision to block the bid as “astonishing and out of touch.”

It’s been said that there are now nearly 8,000 people in Dundee on the housing waiting list – up over 700 since 2022.

However, council chiefs rebuked the waiting list as misleading insisting that many are in homes and not homeless.

Last month councillors also approved a £4m scheme which will allow construction services to focus solely on the council’s housing stock for around five months.

This week Angus Council became the latest Scottish council to declare a housing emergency exactly six weeks on from a previous call being rejected.

Dundee facing housing challenges

But neighbourhood regeneration, housing and estate management convener Mark Flynn plans to block the bid for a second time, insisting that “nothing’s changed” since the original decision was made.

He said: “Every local authority has its own challenges, although all the challenges tend to be similar, but at different levels,” said Councillor Flynn.

“Dundee has got challenges like any other local authority and I accept that but we have also got plans in place.

“I’m really confident that officers are addressing all the challenges that we can address locally, and once they are exhausted and we are still in this situation, we will then look again at whether to reconsider declaring an emergency.

“But then the question is what difference does that make to the challenges we have got in front of us.

“I was talking yesterday to people with regards to declaring an emergency – I asked that question – the difference is that they have an action plan.

“Well we’ve got a plan and the plan has been put in place to address homelessness as best we can locally, to address voids as best we can locally, and hopefully get our voids down to pre-Covid levels and then continuing from that.”