Office figures: Avison Young, The Big Nine, Q2 2026 — Edinburgh office vacancy 7.3% (up 52 basis points on the quarter), Grade A vacancy 0.7%; no availability figure in square feet is published on the page. Homes: our economic model’s conversion engine. Map built 2026-10-09.
One point per building, from public records, open data and cited reports. Filter by type, size and how sure the evidence is; open one to see who says so and whether it could become homes.
No open list of empty business premises: the council does not publish its empty-property rates accounts, and the Scottish Assessors' valuation roll is searchable one address at a time only.
Check any building in Edinburgh: could it become homes, and could the EHC model work there?
The articles do not give an address we could place, so these have no pin yet. From news reports, summed up in our own words with a link to each article — not checked on site by EHC.
The districts where empty space, the right zoning and a working neighbourhood come together, and the owners and programmes that open a door. 7.3% of the office stock stands empty (the floor area is not published).
The most buildings at risk in one place, among them the council's former Royal High School.
Risk: Small listed buildings and upper floors; HES inspections date from 2020–2021.
Council-owned sites with vacant buildings and the empty gas works offices.
Risk: Industrial heritage with consents already granted to private developers.
The city's largest cluster of vacant and derelict land around the harbour and the Madelvic factory.
Risk: Mostly land; port and private owners; some contamination.
A hospital estate with vacant listed pavilions allocated for housing-led use.
Risk: Disposal and the place brief decide what happens; heritage constraints.
Decisions, auctions and closures that change what becomes available, and when.
Avison Young puts Edinburgh's office vacancy at 7.3% in the second quarter of 2026, up 52 basis points, with Grade A space at 0.7%.
The Scottish Government published the 2025 site register: 47 sites in Edinburgh (111 ha), six with vacant buildings.
The council decided to raise the council-tax premium on long-term empty homes from 100% to 300%, effective 1 January 2027.
In September 2025 Edinburgh had 3,080 homes empty for six months or more (2,531 for over a year) and 3,384 more exempt from council tax as unoccupied.
Gracemount Mansion Development Trust won £167,340 from the National Lottery Community Fund to buy the council's disused mansion through a community asset transfer.
22 sources connected, 1 waiting for access. We only use data we may lawfully reuse; where a publisher blocks automated access we do not work around it — a person downloads it, or we ask for permission.
| Source | Access | Records | Status | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenStreetMap disused/abandoned tags and brownfields OpenStreetMap contributors | Open API | 129 | Live 2026-10-09 | ODbL 1.0 (© OpenStreetMap contributors) |
| Rail, S-Bahn and U-Bahn stations (OpenStreetMap) OpenStreetMap contributors | Open API | scoring | Live 2026-10-09 | ODbL 1.0 (© OpenStreetMap contributors) |
| Building heights: GlobalBuildingAtlas (TU Munich) Zhu, X. X., Chen, S., Zhang, F., Shi, Y., Wang, Y. (2025), Technical University of Munich GlobalBuildingAtlas: an open global and complete dataset of building polygons, heights and LoD1 3D models. Earth System Science Data 17(12), 6647–6668, doi:10.5194/essd-17-6647-2025. Read from the Parquet copy on Source Cooperative. Satellite-derived heights (typically 1.5–3 m error in Europe), turned into storeys with storey heights fitted on Berlin; used only where no register or official 3D model sizes the building. | Open download | 314 buildings sized | Live 2026-10-09 | CC BY-NC 4.0 (heights); footprints from OpenStreetMap and Microsoft: ODbL |
| Storeys where nothing better sizes the building: EUBUCCO v0.2 EUBUCCO (TU Berlin / ai4up) EUBUCCO v0.2, ODbL 1.0 — Edinburgh has no open register or 3D model with storeys. Used only for buildings nothing else sizes: storeys mapped in OpenStreetMap, else EUBUCCO’s own estimate. | Open download | 28 buildings sized | Live 2026-10-09 | ODbL 1.0 |
| Road noise (EU Environmental Noise Directive, Lden) European Environment Agency | Open API | scoring | Live 2026-10-09 | EEA standard re-use policy (attribution) |
| Leerstandsmelder.de — public reports of empty buildings Leerstandsmelder (Gängeviertel e.V., Hamburg) Shown while we ask Leerstandsmelder for permission. Reports since 2016 only, with the address, the month reported and a link to each entry; not checked by EHC. Each point says when a report has since been marked demolished, lived in, in interim use or rebuilt on Leerstandsmelder, and the owner type the reporter gave (private owners are never named). | Asking for permission | 0 | Pending 2026-10-09 | Credited to Leerstandsmelder.de; asking for permission |
| Open-ended property funds: buildings they report partly empty Open-ended real-estate funds (each point names its fund and report) German and Austrian open-ended public property funds must list every property with its vacancy (or letting) rate in their annual and half-year reports. scripts/reuse/import-fund-reports.ts reads those lists; properties at 10 % vacancy or more are shown, those at 25 % or more count as evidence. | Open download | 0 | Live 2026-10-09 | Published fund report (KAGB / KARBV property list), cited per point |
| Co-working spaces, department stores, banks, hotels and cinemas listed as permanently closed Overture Maps Foundation (closure data: BrightQuery company records) Places with operating_status "permanently_closed" in the monthly Overture release, read by scripts/reuse/import-overture-closures.ts and matched to the building they sit in. A closed business is usually one unit; names are shown only for companies, never for sole traders. | Open download | 0 | Live 2026-10-09 | CDLA Permissive 2.0 (Overture Maps Foundation) |
| Land without current use and stalled construction, mapped from satellite imagery (Copernicus Urban Atlas 2006–2018) European Environment Agency — Copernicus Land Monitoring Service Urban Atlas class 13400 (brownfields, demolition sites and gaps in the built-up area, 0.25 ha and up) compared across the 2006, 2012 and 2018 editions, so each plot says how long it has stood unused; plus construction sites (13300) already under way in 2012, and 2012 construction sites left unused by 2018. Read from the EEA's open ArcGIS services, the same way in every radar city. The 2021 edition (Copernicus Data Space) drops plots built on since 2018 where scripts/reuse/import-urban-atlas-2021.ts has been run. Points are context, never evidence of vacancy. | Open API | 41 | Live 2026-10-09 | Copernicus open data (© European Union, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service 2006–2021, EEA) |
| Stalled construction and buildings held by insolvent developers EHC research (dated press and court sources per point) Signa, Adler/Consus and other developer insolvencies since 2022 and stalled sites, each with its latest dated status (src/scripts/data/reuse/stalled-projects.json; news leads from scripts/reuse/mine-news.ts are reviewed before they join). | EHC research | 0 | Live 2026-10-09 | Cited publisher per point |
| Church buildings the dioceses and regional churches plan to give up Catholic dioceses and Protestant regional churches (their building plans), via EHC research Buildings a church body’s published building plan or recent reporting names as to be given up, without church funding, for sale or lease, or profaned (src/scripts/data/reuse/church-plans.json and brussels-churches.json). | EHC research | 0 | Live 2026-10-09 | Cited publisher per point |
| Named buildings and sites from EHC research (each with its own source) European Housing Coop research Includes the library’s public lighthouse conversions (src/scripts/data/reuse/lighthouses.json), shown under "Already converting" with a link to their library page. | EHC research | 8 | Live 2026-10-09 | Facts cited to their publishers |
| Year built and listing: OpenStreetMap building tags OpenStreetMap contributors start_date / construction_date and heritage / listed_status of the OpenStreetMap outline a record is matched to, where no register answers. Read with the outline match, not a separate query. | Open API | scoring | Live 2026-10-09 | ODbL 1.0 (© OpenStreetMap contributors) |
| Sites with vacant buildings — Scottish Vacant and Derelict Land Survey Scottish Government (Communities Analysis Division) — Scottish Vacant and Derelict Land Survey: Site Register 2025, from the councils' returns (City of Edinburgh Council) | Open download | 6 | Live 2026-10-09 | Open Government Licence v3.0 (gov.scot; the same survey is OGL v3 on the Improvement Service's Spatial Hub) — the register page says the councils own the site information and asks for the council's permission before reuse; credited to the Scottish Government and City of Edinburgh Council |
| Publicly owned vacant and derelict land — Scottish Vacant and Derelict Land Survey Scottish Government (Communities Analysis Division) — Scottish Vacant and Derelict Land Survey: Site Register 2025, from the councils' returns (City of Edinburgh Council) | Open download | 8 | Live 2026-10-09 | Open Government Licence v3.0 (gov.scot; the same survey is OGL v3 on the Improvement Service's Spatial Hub) — the register page says the councils own the site information and asks for the council's permission before reuse; credited to the Scottish Government and City of Edinburgh Council |
| Other vacant and derelict land — Scottish Vacant and Derelict Land Survey Scottish Government (Communities Analysis Division) — Scottish Vacant and Derelict Land Survey: Site Register 2025, from the councils' returns (City of Edinburgh Council) | Open download | 33 | Live 2026-10-09 | Open Government Licence v3.0 (gov.scot; the same survey is OGL v3 on the Improvement Service's Spatial Hub) — the register page says the councils own the site information and asks for the council's permission before reuse; credited to the Scottish Government and City of Edinburgh Council |
| Vacant buildings on the Buildings at Risk Register Historic Environment Scotland — Buildings at Risk Register for Scotland (BARR), read from buildingsatrisk.org.uk | Open download | 47 | Live 2026-10-09 | Open Government Licence v3.0 — HES offers BARR as one of its portal spatial downloads, all OGL v3 (portal.historicenvironment.scot/termsandconditions): “Contains Historic Environment Scotland and OS data © Historic Environment Scotland and Crown Copyright and database right 2024, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.” (The buildingsatrisk.org.uk website itself says all rights reserved.) |
| Other buildings at risk (Buildings at Risk Register) Historic Environment Scotland — Buildings at Risk Register for Scotland (BARR), read from buildingsatrisk.org.uk | Open download | 4 | Live 2026-10-09 | Open Government Licence v3.0 — HES offers BARR as one of its portal spatial downloads, all OGL v3 (portal.historicenvironment.scot/termsandconditions): “Contains Historic Environment Scotland and OS data © Historic Environment Scotland and Crown Copyright and database right 2024, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.” (The buildingsatrisk.org.uk website itself says all rights reserved.) |
| Office buildings mapped in OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap contributors | Open API | 230 | Live 2026-10-09 | ODbL |
| Buildings named in the news (each with its article) Local and national press, read by EHC Buildings the news reports empty, for sale or to let, to be demolished or being converted (src/scripts/data/reuse/news-building-leads.json; rules in src/lib/reuse/news-layer.ts). A report that names a building already on the map is shown on its card instead of a second point; one an open source contradicted, or that says the building is in use, is left out. Not checked on site. | EHC research | 41 | Live 2026-10-14 | Facts with a link to the article; the one-line summary is ours — no article text is republished |
| Year built: Colouring Britain (crowd-sourced) Colouring Cities Research Programme (The Alan Turing Institute) and contributors The year (or a span of 30 years or less) contributors give for the building a record sits in, through the site’s own point lookup. Crowd-sourced, like OpenStreetMap; a register answer replaces it. Sparse outside central London. | Open API | scoring | Live 2026-10-14 | ODbL 1.0 — credit Colouring Cities and its contributors |
| Era of the buildings around it: VOA council tax stock (LSOA) Valuation Office Agency; boundaries Office for National Statistics Domestic properties by build period (CTSOP 4.1, 2026) in the record’s LSOA, on the ONS LSOA 2021 outlines — homes, not the building itself. England and Wales only. | Open download | scoring | Live 2026-10-14 | Open Government Licence v3.0 |
| Probable era: estimated from a street photo (Panoramax, Mapillary, Google Street View) Panoramax and Mapillary contributors; Google Street View (research use agreed with Google, 14 Oct 2026); estimate by EHC with a vision model Where no register dates a building: its era read from a Panoramax or Mapillary photo looking at it — Google Street View only where no open photo answers (scripts/reuse/estimate-photo-eras.ts), only when the building is clearly visible and the model is confident, and only as “before 1945” or “1945 or later” — the split it got right for 89% of buildings with a register year in Amsterdam and Paris, and 89% from Street View pictures alone (photo-eras/calibration.json). An estimate: a sentence in the conversion check, never points. | Open API | scoring | Live 2026-10-14 | Open photos CC BY-SA 4.0 or Licence Ouverte 2.0 (per picture); Street View read for research only, never stored or shown; only the estimated era is published, never a photo |
Open data cannot see everything. Tell us about a building in Edinburgh that stands empty or barely used; once we have checked it, it joins the map under “Reported by visitors (checked)”.
The other radars in the same country and the nearest beyond. All 149 cities in the atlas
The figure on each card: empty buildings on record.