Reports of noisy sex parties have angered residents across Edinburgh.

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Green MSP Andy Wightman raised concerns over the number of residents in Old Town and Grassmarket about loud sex parties.

He told housing minister Kevin Stewart in Holyrood: “Over the past few weeks, I have been speaking to constituents who live in the Old Town and the Grassmarket in Edinburgh.

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“It is clear that there is a substantial problem with unregulated growth in short-term holiday lets. A substantial part of the residential population in those areas might disappear within the next decade.

“Very audible sex parties have taken place in the flat above one constituent, and an elderly couple are now living out the rest of their years lonely in a tenement stair that has lost all its other permanent residents.

“Others with young families live in a state of stress and anxiety due to the rent-seeking behaviour of a growing number of property owners.”

Following the claims, Stewart said he does “sympathise” with the constituents but “the planning system cannot always readily distinguish between different types of housing tenure”.

He added: “Where a householder proposes to change the use of an existing residential flat, the requirement for planning permission will depend on the circumstances of each individual case, and the matter will be for the planning authority concerned, in the first instance.