Home News Council by elections – Southside/Newington – Ruth Elliott

Council by elections – Southside/Newington – Ruth Elliott

August 19, 2026 7:34 am

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Ruth Elliott is originally from rural West Cumbria, but moved to Edinburgh to study politics at university. She arrived in 2020 and admitted that she found the experience “quite hard in lots of different ways – partly because of the pandemic”.

She has now lived in Edinburgh for six years, and for four of those she has lived in Southside/Newington. She said: “I absolutely love living in Edinburgh. I think it is a fantastic city and so do lots of people – everybody seems to want to live here!”

She has become passionate about her local area and has slowly become involved with local politics which she says really excites her. She said: “I am really passionate about my local area and trying to improve things here and I want to represent my community.”

As a student, towards the end of her degree she discovered that she could stand for her students union, which had never occurred to her before. She explained how that has shaped her interests: “I knew that I wanted to do make a change and so I stood to be the vice president community at Edinburgh University Students Association (EUSA) and I won. The other candidates in that election were also really strong candidates so I was really honoured that people put their faith in me.

“It was the best thing I ever could have done. It was such a good year of learning. I campaigned partly with the city council and also on a national level with the Scottish Government on housing issues. I’m really happy to talk a lot about that because I think we got really close to changing the law basically.”

Tenants rights and student accommodation

One of the big topics when she was elected Vice President of EUSA was the housing crisis in Edinburgh, and Ruth uncovered a major inequity. She discovered that students who live in purpose built student accommodation are not covered by the same rights as other tenants. She said: “I discovered that students who live in purpose-built student accommodation were not covered by rent controls. They aren’t covered by other housing rights that other tenants would have if they lived in the private residential sector.

“I started a campaign with my counterparts at other student unions in Scotland – we had people in the Edinburgh universities, in a couple of the Glasgow universities, Stirling, Dundee, Aberdeen, University of the Highlands and Islands. We lobbied our MSPs to put amendments into the Housing Bill that went through last year to include student accommodation in the rights that they were giving renters.

“We wanted them to better regulate it in general because it is quite an unregulated profit driven market. At Stage two of the parliamentary process, the Conservatives and the Labour MSPs submitted amendments that would have done that. And that was really exciting.

“And we thought we’d won. Tthen at Stage three, the SNP government removed them all because they had enough votes to do so.”

Ruth outlined that the owners of the Purpose Built Student Accommodation can “charge whatever they like”. She said: ” I think the average rent for rooms in these places is about £1,000 per month per person. It’s awful. And they prey on the international student market because they are selling a package that this will make their lives easier if they stay in one of those blocks. But the students don’t know that this is not the average rent for the city. It is quite an exploitative model.”

Ruth continued: “It drives up the prices in that local area and this is why I’m so passionate about this. I think that we sometimes fall into a bit of a trap where we pit students and residents against each other. Something that I’d be really passionate about if I was elected as a councillor is really trying to bring communities together, because I think students, a lot of the time they’re staying here for four years, they are equal and valid residents of this city.

“Students make up 15 % of Edinburgh’s population. That’s no small number. And I think that if we can tackle this problem with these luxury student accommodation blocks, that’s good for everybody. That’s good for the students and for the longer term residents of the city.”

There are several PBSA blocks in the ward, but Ruth said some of these are buildings owned by the university where rents are not so expensive, and the university is subject to the rules on rent controls.

Ruth graduated last year in 2025 and has worked for a while at Queen Margaret University and then at Morrison’s in Gilmerton. She said that this experience has taught her the realities of surviving on a minimum wage job – both for her and her colleagues.

She would love to become a councillor as she things that local politics is undervalued. She said: “I think it is a really important part of our government system. It is underfunded which is such a shame as it affects so much of people’s day-to-day lives.”

And in standing for election, Ruth believes that her age is only a benefit. She said: “I think that it’s really important to have young people involved in local politics. I don’t need to tell you that our council is mostly made up of older people and I’ve already been told quite a few times, mostly on the internet, that I’m not experienced enough and that I shouldn’t be doing this. And I think that’s absolutely ridiculous because I have a lot of life experience already, even though I’m only 24 and I’ve worked seven jobs.

“And I just think that every generation goes through different challenges in each stage of their life to the one previous. And in order to be truly representative, we need to have every generation in our politics. And in particular, Southside Newton, I think is quite a young ward. It’s a young part of the city, partly because of the students, but not young professionals.

“It’s a very youthful area and I think it would be really, really valuable to have my voice on the council for that.”

As well as housing which she is well-versed in Ruth also wants to campaign for active travel. She does not own a car and walks and cycles or takes the bus everywhere. She said she is very aware of the state of the roads – “which is what comes up on every single door that we have knocked on.” She thinks it would be a good area to work on to see how more active travel routes can be joined up. She is also a supporter of the Edinburgh South Suburban Railway which has gained some momentum in the past year.

Ruth has been making some short videos and publishing her messages on Instagram: