Axing operators with no idea what need there is for city self-catering

With the grassroots backing of a sector that feels under concerted attack, four Scottish based operators hope to challenge the culling of self catering actively taking place, not only in Edinburgh but across Scotland.

short stay licensing legislation which has effectively been weaponised to achieve a very different objective to that apparently intended by Scotland's MSPs

The Scottish government's STL licensing scheme is not fit for purpose in so many ways. But right now some councils, notably Edinburgh, have used it as a pretext to shutter vast swathes of existing local businesses. There's no sign this is about to stop with current estimates at the time of this blog being we're down a minimum of 16,000 bed nights for August 2023 - the Festival city's busiest times. This is having major unintended consequences

• pushing up accommodation costs further than ever before
• pricing out all but the wealthiest visitors
• temp contract staff cannot get temporary residential accommodation to fulfil work commitments
• performers cannot source festival accommodation at a price which is remotely affordable
• huge additional costs to do business

The list goes on. The bottom line, there is yet to be any quantifiable good to emerge from the misapplication of short stay licensing legislation which has effectively been weaponised to achieve a very different objective to that apparently intended by Scotland's MSPs and the spirit of a law meant to be about Health & Safety. I don't think there ever will be... unless you are one of the newly anointed aparthotel groups being welcomed in to Scotland's capital with open arms by city executives. They are being encouraged to take up brownfield city sites that might arguably have better been allocated to housing need.