Current status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 21 January 2021
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the responses from local authority stakeholders to the consultation on short-term lets, whether it will provide grants or loans to councils to assist with the costs of setting up a licensing scheme, and how many have (a) requested and (b) indicated that they might require additional funding.
Local authorities will be able to charge fees to cover the cost of establishing and running their short-term lets licensing scheme. The Scottish Government has no plans to provide grants or loans to local authorities to do so.
A total of 23 local authorities responded to the Short Term Lets: Consultation on a licensing scheme and planning control areas in Scotland (14 September 2020); see www.gov.scot/publications/short-term-lets/ for the consultation paper and report. Three of those responses expressed the opinion that the Scottish Government should provide grant or loan funding to support the establishment of the licensing scheme. Outside of the consultation, no formal requests for additional funding have been received.