NEW demands have been made for more affordable homes to tackle a "crisis" in Scotland as new figures show the proportion of Scottish households that are renting privately is at 15-year high while owner occupiers are at a 15-year low.

The latest government Scottish Household Survey has revealed that whereas in 1999 around one in three households were renting at low cost from local authorities or housing association, in 2014 it was just one in four.

However the households turning to the private sector to rent has nearly tripled from 120,000 in 1999 to 330,000 last year. In 2014, 13 percent were privately renting, while in 1999, it was just five percent.

The trend away from social renting has been assisted by a rapid decline in local authority renters. Just over one in four households were in local authority lets, while last year it had dropped to around one in seven.

In 2014, 60 percent of households were in bought homes, the lowest since the creation of the devolved Scottish Parliament in 1999 and a drop from 2009, after the global banking and financial crisis, when home-ownership was at 66 percent.

Shelter Scotland said the figures highlighted the lack of affordable housing saying there was "little or no light at the end of the tunnel that is Scotland's housing crisis".

Some analysts believe the chronic shortage of affordable homes have driven up the cost of both renting and buying.

The report came hot on the heels of a You Move study which revealed that the average cost of renting a home remains at an all-time high, with tenants in Scotland paying around £549 a month in July, 2.8 per cent higher than a year ago.

Shelter Scotland revealed that 45% of the total calls to its Scottish helpline last year were from private renters.

The housing and homelessness charity said the latest evidence from official statistics is that 18% of all homelessness applications came from the private rented sector which it said "further underlines the point that this is a sector long overdue for reform".

Ms Alison Watson said: “A healthy housing market is one where everyone has a secure, affordable home to live in, whether renting or buying. In today’s Scotland a major shortage of affordable housing means that many are being denied that right.

'Would-be first time buyers still face growing difficulty trying to get onto the property ladder, with high house prices and a squeeze on lending leaving many locked out of the housing market."

There was continuing concern that there were 160,000 households on waiting lists and 10,488 families and individuals in temporary accommodation.

The decline in renting social housing has been assisted by the 43,000 local authority homes lost from the sector through the Right to Buy in the last 10 years, according to Shelter Scotland, with further homes sold from housing association stock.

“To meaningfully tackle our housing crisis, we need to build more affordable homes, including 10,000 new social homes every year to help those for whom the prospect of a home of their own is still well out of reach," said Ms Watson.

Ashley Campbell, policy and practice officer at the Chartered Institute of Housing Scotland, said there was a need to find new ways to find the delivery of new affordable homes in the short-term, saying she accepted the Scottish Government was on track to meet its target of delivering 30,000 in this parliament's lifetime.

"A series of factors including affordability, difficulties in accessing mortgage funding and significant numbers of households still waiting for social housing across Scotland point to the fact that there is an acute shortage of housing across all tenures," she said.

lan Stokes, Scottish Federation of Housing Associations policy lead, added: "We still need to be building a significantly higher number of homes than are currently being built.

"Not only will this reduce the housing waiting lists, and provide homes for some of Scotland's poorest and most vulnerable people, it will also reduce the housing benefit bill as private-sector rents are much higher than social rents."

The Scottish Government said Scotland had suffered from having too few affordable social rent houses built pre-2007 which is why it is now "working hard" to tackle the shortfall of affordable housing in communities across Scotland.

It said it would shortly be introducing a bill in Parliament to create a new private rental tenancy to improve security for tenants in their homes, include proposals to protect tenants against excessive rent rises, and ensure "balanced appropriate safeguards" for landlords and investors.

“The private rent sector is changing, and is now home to a growing number of people in Scotland, including families. We all therefore want the PRS to be an attractive and affordable housing option," said a Scottish Government spokesman.