Moray council house vacancy rate lowest in Scottish ranking
New figures have revealed which Scottish areas had fewest of their council houses lying empty.
According to Scottish Government data, Moray had Scotland’s lowest rate of vacant council houses as of March 2024.
The figures, which are the most-recent available, show that Moray Council had just 36 normally-rented council houses sitting vacant.
Making up 0.6 per cent of the housing supply, the rate was less than a third of that across Scotland at 1.9 per cent.
When including properties used as temporary homeless accommodation, and those awaiting demolition or modernisation, Moray’s figure fell to just a quarter of the national rate.
A spokesperson for Moray Council confirmed that the low vacancy rate was a “positive result” owing to a drop in average turnaround time.
He added that the time taken to re-let council properties had dropped by nearly half in the last three years.
Fewer tenants were also leaving council properties, the spokesperson said, further reducing the number of vacancies.
“The low vacancy rate for council housing in Moray is a positive result of the improvements we’ve made in reducing the time it takes to re-let empty properties,” he added.
“Over the past few years, we’ve managed to cut the average time taken to re-let empty properties significantly; from 62 days in 2021/22, to 52 days in 2022/23 and down to 35 days in 2023/24.
“Additionally, the number of properties vacated by Moray Council tenants has reduced by 8.6 per cent over the same period, from 452 in 2021/22 to 413 in 2023/24 - contributing to the lower vacancy rate.”
Also revealed by the new figures is the length of time that properties had been vacant for.
Ten normally-rentable homes had lain vacant for at least six months, with two sitting empty for more than two years.
However, most properties had been out of circulation for less than six weeks.
Across Moray, eight vacant council houses were being used as temporary homeless accommodation - compared to 12 in 2023 before.
In total, unoccupied properties were unoccupied while awaiting modernisation works.
At least two of these properties had been waiting between six months and two years for refurbishment.
Also revealed was an increase of 38 in Moray’s supply of council houses.
The Scottish Government figures cover 27 Scottish councils but exclude six: Argyll and Bute; Dumfries and Galloway; Edinburgh; Glasgow City; Inverclyde; Na h-Eileanan Siar; and Scottish Borders.
In contrast with Moray’s performance, Aberdeen City Council had Scotland’s highest rate of council house vacancies.
At nine per cent, the north east city had 15 times more of its housing stock sitting vacant than Moray Council did.
However, neighbouring Highland and Aberdeenshire councils were among areas with the lowest vacancy rate, at 1 per cent and 1.1 per cent respectively.
