Orkney Islands Local Authority
Please note, this report uses the definition of “long term empty” (LTE) used by National Records Scotland (NRS): “homes empty for 6+ months (and liable for council tax).” Figures published by NRS show that Orkney had 317* LTE homes in 2024. The table below shows how these LTE homes are distributed across the Local Authority area.
• 2.68% of Orkney Islands homes were long term empty in 2024, compared to 1.80% in Scotland as a whole.
• 66.86% (230) of Orkney Islands empty homes have been empty for longer than one year**.
• Orkney Islands accounts for 0.73% of homes empty for more than 1 year in Scotland.
Empty Homes Officer for Orkney Islands:
Rachael Batty [email protected]
Please click on the map above to go to the Statistics.Gov.UK page for Orkney Islands. You can find out the location of each of the Intermediate Data Zones by clicking on 2011 Intermediate Zones under Locations on that page
| Intermediate Data Zones | # of LTE Homes | Change 2023-2024 | % of Properties LTE | % of Orkney LTE homes | % of Orkney Homes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Isles | 112 | +37 | 4.43% | 35.33% | 21.35% |
| 2 | West Kirkwall | 50 | +9 | 2.39% | 15.77% | 17.69% |
| 3 | West Mainland | 49 | +11 | 2.35% | 15.46% | 17.60% |
| 4 | East Mainland | 42 | +8 | 1.91% | 13.25% | 18.55% |
| 5 | Stromness, Sandwick and Stenness | 34 | -4 | 2.04% | 10.73% | 14.05% |
| 6 | East Kirkwall | 30 | +2 | 2.36% | 9.46% | 10.74% |
Where the % of homes is lower than % of LTE homes, it indicates areas with above average levels of empty homes.
For a full version of this report please contact the partnership’s data analyst at [email protected]
*This differs from the 6+ month empty figure published by Scottish Gov for Orkney- 344
**According to data published by SG
Sources