YESTERDAY marked the end of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, a day people who live in Edinburgh note in their diaries as the day they can finally catch their bus on time, find a seat in their local pub, or make it across Princes Street. Of course we love the Fringe and other festivals which make our city ever exciting and stimulating. And, at the same time, it comes at a cost.

Simply put, the unchecked growth of tourism over the past decades has exacerbated the housing crisis in Edinburgh. Developers and landlords have taken full advantage of overtourism to hollow out our homes and communities in the name of soaring profits and this needs to be reined in. 

Last week, Edinburgh City Council voted a motion to introduce a visitor levy, or tourist tax, with some of the money raised going towards council housing in the capital. 

Make no mistake, this is a huge victory for Edinburgh residents. The 5 per cent tax on overnight stays in hotels, AirBnbs and hostels has the potential to raise £37 million annually. And after extensive campaigning from members of Living Rent, Edinburgh City Council has agreed to spending £5m of that to borrow a further £70m to build approximately 500 council housing and affordable homes. 

Using the tourist tax to fund council housing is a vital step forward in combating the city’s housing emergency. Landlords have increased rents in Edinburgh by 18.4 per cent over the last year and above 80 per cent over the last decade, a whole 30 points above inflation. 

At the same time, council housing has been consistently underfunded and unavailable for those in need. Though (through pressure from Living Rent) the council has committed to putting a sizeable number of the 1,500 empty homes back into use through repairs and development, this is not anywhere near enough to house the 23,000 on social housing waiting lists in the city. And there are nearly 5,000 people stuck in temporary accommodation in the city. 

On top of a tourist tax, we also need to curb the explosion of short-term let properties in the city if we are to meaningfully address soaring rent prices. Every year, Edinburgh hosts almost four million tourists, whose demand for cheap places to holiday comes at the expense of long-term available homes for the city’s residents to live in. 

Living Rent members have fought hard against the rise of short-term lets and pushed the council to ensure short-term lets were registered and their numbers monitored and slowly decreased. But the current plans to regulate short-term lets do not go far enough as there no plans in place to enforce the new policies and the temporary exemptions policy is far too permissive, allowing short-term let operators to apply for six-week long exemptions including: arena tours, the Six Nations, the various festivals, conventions, Christmas and Hogmanay.

This incentivises short-term let operators to keep properties empty as operators earn significant amounts during these periods and do not need to make them available year-round to earn a profit. This in turn takes property away from the housing market.

The commitment from Edinburgh City Council to build council housing after the campaign from our members is a great step forward, but we need to go further. Berlin has had a 5 per cent tourist tax since 2014, Amsterdam has recently raised its tourist tax to 12.5 per cent of the cost of the room booked. Neither city has seen a decrease in tourists due to the visitor levies. More money could be raised and more of it spent on council housing. 

We also need Edinburgh City Council to ensure that there are more long-term homes available by introducing proper enforcement of short-term let regulations, removing the exemption period and having significant penalties for landlords who break the rules. 

And crucially, we need homes to be affordable. When the Scottish government finally introduces rent controls, we need Edinburgh Council to be the first to demonstrate how these can make a meaningful change for tenants in Scotland. The city needs rent controls capped at a zero per cent increase that do not allow rent increases between tenancies, to stop more people being pushed into homelessness. 

It’s great to see Edinburgh council finally putting its money where its mouth is: the housing crisis that plagues Edinburgh needs every hand on deck to solve it. The council should be serious and focused on raising income through policies such as the visitor levy, on bringing more properties into long-term use whether that be curbing short term lets or reducing the number of voids, and on pushing for rent controls to bring down sky-high rents. 

The people are what makes Edinburgh as exciting place to visit and the council should do everything it can to ensure we can afford to stay in our city.

Katharina Bandmann is a Living Rent member in Edinburgh.