Hundreds of homes owned by the Ministry of Defence are lying empty across the north and north-east, it has emerged.
New figures have revealed that there are more than 10,000 “void” properties owned by the military across the UK – and almost half of them have been empty for more than a year.
A breakdown of the figures showed that last month there were 237 vacant homes in Argyll and Bute, as well as 121 in Moray and 58 in Inverness-shire.
The areas are home to the Fort George, RAF Lossiemouth, Kinloss Barracks, and HMNB Faslane bases.
A further five were empty MoD homes were located in Aberdeenshire, while there were three on Benbecula, and one in each of Caithness, Ross and Cromarty, Orkney and Shetland.
Properties are classed as “void” if they are unallocated, undergoing maintenance or refurbishment, or waiting to be sold or demolished.
The numbers emerged at a time when more than 7,000 people are on the waiting list for a home in the Highland Council area, and another 3,500 in Moray.
Alasdair Christie, general manager of the Inverness Citizens Advice Bureau and a Liberal Democrat councillor in the Highland capital, said: “From a Citizens Advice perspective, I would like to see the government of any shade take properties left empty for an unreasonable length of time and look to put them back into use.
“It is not just the MoD. You often find it with police houses and religious houses for ministers.”
A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said it manages about 19,000 family moves in the UK each year.
“In order to achieve this, a management margin of void properties is held,” she said.
“This ensures that homes are available for families when required and allows improvement works to take place between occupants.
“There are fundamental differences between managing service family accommodation and managing housing stock in other sectors, such as housing associations. MoD cannot operate waiting lists for vacant homes because, under defence policy, it pledges to house service personnel when and where required, and in a certain size or type of property according to entitlement.”
She added: “In other words the MoD queues houses for families instead of the other way round.
“Properties may be held over a period of time for a planned future requirement, for example a major unit moving to a new base.
“Alternatively, those properties may not be currently required because of their location, size or type but must be held to ensure that future demand can be met.”
