The Highlands are reaching a tipping point where the growth of short term lets risks changing communities and reducing the homes available to local people, according to an Inverness councillor.
Inverness Central Councillor Dr Michael Gregson has backed Highland Council officers’ recommendation to progress plans for Short Term Let Control Areas, arguing that the decision could prove crucial to the future of the city and wider region.
The proposed controls would not ban short term lets, but would allow future conversions to be considered through the planning system and their wider effect on communities to be taken into account.
Dr Gregson said:
“At the end of the day, we need a city and region which meet the needs of our own population to live and work, as well as having a great hospitality and tourism offer for visitors.
“It depends on what kind of Inverness, what kind of Highlands, we want.
“Just now we’re at a tipping point, with the character of many neighbourhoods seriously undermined by too many homes’ being turned over to tourism.”
He pointed to recent protests against overtourism in Mallorca as a warning of what can happen when the needs of visitors and residents fall out of balance.
Concerns raised during Highland consultations included housing availability, schools facing closure and difficulties recruiting people into hospitals and local businesses because workers cannot find suitable homes.
One consultation respondent described people as being “alienated in their own area, and neighbourhoods are being commercialised.”
Dr Gregson acknowledged that short term lets are not solely responsible for Highland’s housing pressures and that introducing Control Areas would not solve the housing shortage.
He said increasing housing supply remains essential, but argued that converting potential residential properties into visitor accommodation adds further pressure to an already constrained market.
The proposals have faced opposition from the Association of Scotland’s Self Caterers, including the prospect of legal action on behalf of existing operators.
Dr Gregson rejected the argument that Control Areas would amount to an attack on legitimate tourism businesses and said some short term lets form part of portfolios containing up to 100 properties.
“The fact is that Short-Term Let Control Areas are not a ban or prohibition, but are mechanisms to assess and manage future conversions through a planning lens and consider the welfare of the community more broadly.
“The Planning Authority having this duty is entirely appropriate in law.”
Council officers have identified areas where short term lets account for around 20 per cent of potential dwellings, according to Dr Gregson.
He also cited 2024 research from MKA Economics which he said estimated a five bedspace short term let generated around £24,000 annually for the local economy compared with £43,000 from an equivalent residential property.
Dr Gregson accepts that introducing Control Areas would bring its own difficulties, including administration, enforcement, unlicensed activity and the prospect of planning appeals.
But with housing affordability and availability already among the most serious challenges facing communities across the Highlands, he believes doing nothing carries consequences of its own.
The argument is ultimately about balance.
Tourism remains enormously important to the Highland economy, but so too is ensuring the people who serve visitors, staff hospitals, run businesses and raise families here can still find somewhere to live.
