Greater incentives could be introduced to free up bedrooms in Moray Council homes.
Figures presented at yesterday’s meeting of the local authority’s communities committee showed there were more than 3,400 people on the waiting list for a house.
Despite that figure representing a drop of 199 from last year, housing officer David Munro said his department was still “under pressure”.
Council leader Stewart Cree confirmed that a review of incentives, encouraging tenants to move from homes where they had empty bedrooms, would take place later in the year.
He added: “In a perfect world, you could solve a lot of the issues by just dictating to people: ‘move here, move there.’
“Every bedroom released through an incentive scheme means you don’t have to build one. It’s cheaper to make it a real incentive.”
Housing officers at the meeting explained the current cash incentive was calculated on a sliding scale depending on how many bedrooms were being freed up.
Elgin City North councillor Kirsty Reid highlighted the fact that the overcrowding and under-occupancy figures were almost identical.
The local authority currently aims to allocate 40% of homes to homeless tenants, 40% to the waiting list and 20% to transfers.
Committee chairman George Alexander responded that families could still be keen to keep extra bedrooms for when family visited at Christmas.
He said: “Times have moved on from the days when the town council simply said you didn’t need a house and told you to move. We have become a bit more progressive since then.”
Head of Housing and Property, Richard Anderson, added: “We have given a commitment to look again at the down-sizing scheme. It’s something we’re going to undertake this year.”
Elgin was listed as the town where most potential tenants wanted to live with 1,079 applications. Forres had 385 requests and Buckie 256.
Mr Alexander said: “People tend to put down locations where they think they are more likely to get house, but really they want to stay in Craigellachie, for example.”
During the meeting, the committee also praised the work being done by the council to help people living in temporary accommodation out of debt.