A housing crisis is engulfing our local area and all of Scotland.

Last month, the SNP Government declared a national housing emergency.

Argyll and Bute Council was the first Scottish local authority to do this, in June 2023, and four other councils have since done the same, with neighbouring West Dunbartonshire doing so just a few weeks ago.

A similarly stark set of circumstances is occurring at numerous councils across Scotland.

The Scottish Conservatives had repeatedly called for a national housing emergency to be declared. For many months, we insisted that was a necessity.

Unfortunately, the SNP ignored our calls until it was too late. They let this problem spiral out of control. It has now reached acute levels of crisis, with people left in huge amounts of distress and anguish as a result.

Only last month did the SNP Government finally accept how bad the crisis had become.

They have tried to blame others for this problem, as you would expect, but the reality is that this crisis is entirely the SNP's fault.

Despite receiving a record high block grant from the UK Government, they cut the housing budget by £200 million.

That was just the latest in a long line of SNP mistakes over housing policy. During their 17 years in power, the SNP have failed to provide the affordable housing that the country desperately needs.

Now that they have finally declared a housing emergency, they need to urgently take serious and decisive action to turn this situation around. They cannot simply declare an emergency and walk away as if that will fix things.

They need to bring the thousands of empty properties across the country back into use. If those derelict and abandoned buildings were redeveloped and put to use, the housing stock available for people in need would increase quickly.

The SNP also need to work more closely with small housebuilders to increase the number of affordable homes being built each year. If they understood what holds back and slows down local developers, they could fix those issues. By doing so, the government would be better able to set ambitious housebuilding targets for social housing - and actually meet them.

It would also help if the SNP abandoned their reckless experiment with a rent cap, which is a policy that may sound good on paper but doesn't work in practice. The rent cap has actually resulted in rents increasing more in Scotland than elsewhere, while also forcing some developers to put their plans on hold. It has been an abject disaster which has only exacerbated the shortfall in homes.

These are just some of the concrete actions that the SNP could take immediately to start alleviating the housing emergency. If they finally focus on the problem, it can be fixed. It won't happen overnight, but it needs to happen soon for the sake of people stuck on the streets and left in limbo on housing waiting lists.