Historic towns across Slovenia are grappling with negative demographic trends and buildings falling to ruin due to lack of money or ownership issues. To stop the negative trends, the towns would like the state to step in to create a special property fund to buy, refurbish and rent out buildings.

The Association of Slovenian Historic Towns set out their proposal in a meeting with MPs in Kranj on Wednesday.

The association's secretary general Mateja Hafner Dolenc said city centres were being abandoned for the past 30 years as vital services were moving to the outskirts.

Data from the towns shows more than 65% residents of old city centres are more than 65 years old, while young people have moved out.

As many as 35-40% of the buildings in the city centres are empty completely or at least partly, and more than 70% of the buildings are in need of a comprehensive renovation.

In only 21 historic towns around a million square metres of premises are left unused in buildings that could be used as housing or commercial premises.

Hafner Dolenc said these empty, unused buildings represented tremendous development potential that no one was trying to tap into and that called for a systemic approach.

Local authorities are doing their best to revive and refurbish old towns, but they do not have enough money to exercise pre-emptive rights or have projects ready for such purchases, Kranj Deputy Mayor Janez Černe said.

Calling on the state to lend a hand, Štefan Čelan, the former Ptuj mayor, noted that various strategic documents discussed the economic potential of cultural heritage, but little was being done.

"We would like politics to move from words to action," Čelan said, adding that he was glad the meeting today was attended by several MPs, mostly from the ruling party.

The association proposes creating a development property fund to manage historic towns at the national level which would pool funds from the National Housing Fund, Eco Fund, Ministry of Culture and proceeds from management of state-owned investments in tourism.

Borut Sajovic, the head of the deputy faction of the Freedom Movement, who himself comes from a historic town, Tržič, said the proposal should get support at the local and national levels.

"We have more than 100,000 empty properties in Slovenia, and we'd like to build anew in all the 212 municipalities, on fields and meadows," he remarked.

Hafner Dolenc said the dedicated property fund would bring together resources that various government departments allocated for cultural heritage, plus funds from local communities.

This would allow them to finance the purchase and renovation of buildings in historic towns that are relatively cheap and are now bought by speculators, most often for inappropriate purposes, she said.

After renovation, the properties would be offered to young families, which would solve two problems in one go.