Hotelier urges planning authorities to ease rules to fix rural housing crisis

Paddy Crerar, chairman and founder of Crerar Hotels, believes that planning issues are “the largest barrier” preventing a solution to the “crisis on affordable housing” in remote and rural areas in Scotland.

Speaking to The Herald, he emphasised that “no one wants reckless, unfettered planning policies that allow anyone to build anything anywhere”, but, citing his experience of housing provision across Scotland from his long career in hotels, he said the length of time it took for developers in remote and rural areas to secure planning permission for “even non-controversial construction projects” and the hoops they had to go through were “incredible”.

Mr Crerar said: “This is about allowing developers to compensate for a desperate shortage of housing for workers.

“I genuinely believe the Scottish Government… really understand that we are certainly facing, in remote and rural areas, a crisis on affordable housing.”

Mr Crerar said the starting salary for a spa therapist was now about £30,000, up from between £16,000 and £17,000 five years ago, noting consumer price inflation over this period had been relatively low until the surge in recent months. He took the example of a person in such a job having a partner employed on the food and beverage side of the hotels business, as a waiter or waitress, earning £20,000 to £24,000 for working normal hours.

Highlighting the lack of affordable houses to rent or buy, he said: “That is a joint income of £50,000-plus yet they can’t get anywhere. They can’t afford to live in the areas they work in. There are simply not rental properties available. To get on the housing ladder, the number of available entry-level houses in places where we have hotels is really limited.”

He noted the salary for a head chef had risen from between £30,000 and £35,000 five years ago to £60,000, before any incentives.

Mr Crerar said: “This isn’t about the individuals having lack of funds [but] actually [the] lack of supply.”

On how to solve the housing crisis he sees, Mr Crerar said: “The first bit that needs fixed is absolutely fixable. That is about local authorities prioritising planning as critical. [Without that], the businesses in their region will not be able to deliver on turnover, they will not be able to employ people.

“That is something local authorities need to be addressing. They may be doing that – I have not seen any evidence to give me any encouragement on it.”

Mr Crerar flagged the “slow train crash” of Brexit in terms of its huge impact in reducing availability of staff for the hospitality sector, noting his company “absolutely could see the writing on the wall” on this front, and declared workers from European Union countries had been “anything but cheap labour”.

He added: “Unless the housing issue is addressed, how can we encourage people to move to Scotland if they can’t afford…anywhere to live?”