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Protesters are staging a political occupation of a Glasgow building today to demand the creation of more publicly owned housing in the UK.

Activists from left-wing group RISE Scotland are demonstrating at 190 Trongate for 24 hours (Sunday, December 10) in an attempt to shine a spotlight on the "detrimental effect widespread land banking has had on working class communities".

The campaigners say they have targeted the historical city centre building to highlight the casue.

Despite undergoing a £1.5million overhaul in 2015 which transformed the structure into eight luxury flats and a ground floor retail unit, the commercial space remains empty.

A spokesperson for Rise said: "Over the past few months Rise members have been highlighting empty buildings around Scotland.

"This has been part of a wider campaign to highlight the negative impact that land banking and property gatekeeping has on local working-class communities.

"We stated that unless these properties were used in a manner that would directly benefit our communities we would take actions to ensure that they were.

"As Christmas is approaching, families are forced to stretch household budgets further and deeper into debt, whilst land and property is hoarded and locked off to protect the wealth of a tiny minority.

"Our continued campaigning will focus on a variety of issues and topics that will highlight the deeply adverse economic and social effects property gate-keeping has on our working class communities."

The group cites Scottish Government figures revealed last year which show there were 35,727 vacant residential properties across the country, compared with 34,1000 homeless applications between April 2016 and March of this year as one of the reasons for their protest.

The occupation has been organised to take place today to mark International Human Rights Day.