SKYE residents have revealed concerns about the impact of “peer to peer” holiday rental services, such as Airbnb, on the isle’s ongoing housing shortage.
In recent decades, the Skye’s crofting lands have steadily been bought up by individuals intent on building large holiday houses in picturesque locations.
The original croft cottages, while traditionally kept as family residences or holiday homes, are now being let as self-catering properties over the summer months — contributing to the affordable housing shortage blighting the Highlands and Islands.
In a meeting with the Scottish government earlier this month, Highland councillor Stuart Black stated that the area’s tourism industry was worth £1.2 billion in 2016.
He also said the tourism industry is supporting around 24,000 jobs.
Paradoxically, the growth of the industry appears to be limiting the availability of tourism industry workers.
Black acknowledged that evidence collated by the council suggests “a movement of accommodation from the private rented sector to the holiday sector, in part due to increased legislation, is having a detrimental effect on the amount of rented accommodation available”.
Such movement “can have an impact on other tourism businesses who traditionally recruit staff from outside their local area as those employees often struggle to find or pay more for accommodation”, he said.
Shirley Spear, founder of the Three Chimneys restaurant and hotel and director of destination management organisation SkyeConnect, believes the increase in the number of properties using holiday letting agencies has “affected the balance with regards to available housing”.
Spear warned of the dangers of awarding planning permission to new-build holiday properties without taking local infrastructure into account.
Such properties require “back-up of facilities” such as shops, restaurants and pubs in order to thrive.
However, without adequate accommodation for employees, some holiday-makers are arriving to find these services lacking, according to the Skye Connect director.
“One community can only cope with a certain number of holiday lets” she explained.
Nonetheless, Spear was also keen to stress that the problem merely serves to underline the existing difficulties the community faces in tackling the changing use of property as holiday accommodation.
The evolving demographics on the isle requires the recruiting of a workforce from farther afield, unlike in the past when most employees were local.
Finding suitable accommodation for employees has consequently become a huge concern for employers.
“It is extremely difficult to find suitable property to rent, just as it is difficult for our employees to rent individually, or even to buy locally”, Spear said.
“Our General Manager has privately rented a superb home nearby since he moved to Skye with his family.
“He has just been informed that this property will no longer be available for him to rent from November”.
Finding properties for single professionals is also a significant challenge.
Newly appointed programme manager of Ceumannan at the Staffing Ecomuseum, Angus Murray, noticed a “clear lack of properties suitable for single professionals” after he relocated to Skye from the Isle of Lewis.
Murray revealed during his search for properties in early June, there was not a single rental property advertised by local estate agents or online.
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