Scottish Labour housing spokesperson, Mark Griffin MSP, has written to the First Minister asking him to make an urgent statement to parliament outlining his plans to address the deteriorating housing emergency in Scotland.
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See all articlesWest of Scotland Housing Association (WSHA) has appointed Valerie Wilson as its new director of finance. Ms Wilson will be responsible for the development of strategy, policy and performance in respect of finance and ensuring the overall financial wellbeing of WSHA and its subsidiaries.
Dundee City Council has appointed Tony Boyle as its executive director of neighbourhood services. Mr Boyle, who is currently head of environment within the service, has been with Dundee City Council since 2018.
The campaign group formed to keep Reidvale Housing Association as a community-controlled housing association has hit out at the appointment of new interim directors and called for public support for change ahead of a Special General Meeting (SGM) next week.
Sector body Homes for Scotland (HFS) has strengthened its executive team with two new key appointments. Kevin Murphy has joined as head of planning, while David Raine is taking on the wide-ranging role of policy manager.
Cairn Housing Association has appointed Chris Milburn as its new customer services director. Mr Milburn brings with him a wealth of experience, having served as customer services director at Hanover (Scotland) Housing Association since 2014.
Opinion
See all articlesC~urb PSL graduate trainee Lana Turner shares some insights into her role and how it has helped her begin her housing career. Management facilitates you to work on different teams that align with your interests and the business needs.
CaCHE knowledge exchange fellow Dr Gareth Young reflects on LGBT History Month and the work still required to make housing accessible for all. Last month marked LGBT History Month which began back in 1994 in the USA by high school teacher Rodney Wilson who was teaching about the Nazis, and he reveal
Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence director Kenneth Gibb outlines why there is a shortage of affordable student homes and what can be done.
Jimmy Black is looking for credible solutions to Scotland's housing emergency and wants SHN readers to help.
Housing Champions
See all articlesJimmy Black relives a few housing decades with Laurie Naumann, a campaigner on single homelessness, and a founder of Kingdom Housing Association. This is a story about Laurie Naumann, who recently retired after 44 years as a board member at Kingdom Housing Association. But it’s also a step bac
Jimmy Black cycled to Stornoway to meet Calum (Barney) MacKay, chair of TPAS Scotland and long-standing tenant activist. Barney is a trade unionist, and that explains a lot. Trades unions teach their active members how to do many useful things, including basic skills, like how to run a meeting or th
Jimmy Black meets the energetic Evie Copland, multi-award-winner and housing evangelist. “The biggest problem is … how do I change the world with this?” Evie Copland is finishing her Master's in Housing Studies, and she has been a distinguished student. In 2021 she won the Malcolm
Jimmy Black meets Bill Banks, retiring CEO of the multi award-winning Kingdom Group. Bill Banks looks relaxed, calm and entirely at home in his relatively modest office at Kingdom Housing Association. He’s a man at the height of his powers with a very solid track record of achievement. But Bil
Scottish Housing News Podcast
See all articlesAlmost a year since Scotland appointed its first dedicated housing minister, three councils have declared housing emergencies due to mounting pressures in their local housing systems and dozens of others could be set to follow. Now housing bodies across Scotland are making a concerted effort to say
With the Tenant Protection Bill’s in-tenancy rent cap and eviction measures due to expire in a matter of weeks, the Scottish Government has proposed an adjudication scheme to ease the transition until a long-awaited Housing Bill comes to pass. Under the proposals, the process for rent adjudica
Fresh from being recognised by CIH Scotland with a Lifetime Achievement award for having gone the extra mile during his career, Grampian Housing Association chief executive Craig Stirrat joins Kieran Findlay and Jimmy Black to talk about his 40 years in housing so far and the current challenges faci
With Reidvale Housing Association currently considering its options after shareholders voted against a proposed transfer of engagements to Place for People Scotland, Kieran Findlay and Jimmy Black reflect on some of the issues that have been raised so far. They spoke to Glasgow Labour MSP Paul
Black's Blog
See all articlesJimmy Black is looking for credible solutions to Scotland's housing emergency and wants SHN readers to help.
After recording an episode of the Scottish Housing News Podcast on the subject of the proposed rent adjudication scheme for the private rented sector, Jimmy Black shares his own experiences.
Jimmy Black and Kieran Findlay spent 45 minutes of the SHN podcast discussing just about everything important in Scottish housing with the hugely experienced Craig Stirrat, Group CEO of Grampian Housing Association. Jimmy picks out the bits he found most fascinating... Council house stock transfer?
Never mind what you think about it, the rejection by shareholders of Places for People’s bid for Reidvale Housing Association throws up some big issues.
Our Housing Heritage
See all articlesFor the next edition of Our Housing Heritage, journalist and digital history specialist Chris Holme shares the story of how First World War servicemen came to reside in the rural village of Longniddry. Unlikely as it sounds, the Longniddry Piggery provided Britain’s first purpose-built homes f
In the latest article in the ongoing Our Housing Heritage series, Scottish Housing News discusses the Glasgow Rent Strikes of 1915. In the absence of social housing, families across the UK in 1915 were at the mercy of private landlords who could hike rents and evict tenants at will with little restr
The Springburn office of ng homes is named after Ned Donaldson. But who was Ned Donaldson? Kieran Findlay recalls the contribution of the activist and the post-war battle to stop the privatisation of council housing at Merrylee. It was a cold sleety December day in 1951. Slum landlordism and sublett
Duncan Smith, who works in the social housing sector, has contributed this piece as part of his quest for more information about housing architect George Gibson. Several years ago, just after starting my current job, I undertook some research on the properties we were refurbishing at the time. I fou
Next month marks the centenary of Scotland’s first council housing estate, the Logie Estate in Dundee. Lauren Brown reports.
Fuel Poverty
See all articlesNew figures show that people across Scotland are increasingly looking to make energy efficiency upgrades to their homes to reduce their energy bills and carbon emissions, but many are still unsure about how to do it.
Legally binding targets on fuel poverty and net zero will be missed without new, fit-for-purpose legislation on heat in buildings, the Existing Homes Alliance (EHA) has warned. Following hard on the heels of the news that nearly a third of Scotland’s households are now in fuel poverty, the All
New Gorbals Housing Association (NGHA) will host a number of energy information events for tenants throughout March as part of efforts to address the cost-of-living crisis.
Fuel poverty rates in Scotland increased to 31% of all households in 2022, of which more than 18% were in extreme fuel poverty, the latest Scottish House Condition Survey has found.
Scotland’s national advice service is calling for a UK-wide social energy tariff to be introduced to fix the “broken” market and help end the scourge of fuel poverty.
Homelessness
See all articlesNational homelessness charity Bethany Christian Trust has been awarded the Outstanding Organisation ‘Five Star’ Award by the European Foundation for Quality Management. The charity was presented with the prestigious five-star Recognised by EFQM award by the chief executive of EFQM in Edi
Two Scottish charities have been recognised by the UK’s leading dog welfare organisation for going above and beyond to help keep people experiencing homelessness and their dogs together.
People in Scotland overwhelmingly recognise that delivering more social housing is the best way to tackle homelessness, according to new research from Shelter Scotland.
Cyrenians Scottish Centre for Conflict Resolution (SCCR) will mark ‘a decade of conflict resolution’ on the evening of Thursday, 28 March when it celebrates its tenth anniversary at a Scottish Parliament reception.
Non-urgent repairs for West Lothian Council housing tenants are set to resume from 1 April 2024.
PRS
See all articlesEdinburgh-based estate agent Simpson & Marwick has bolstered its East Lothian operation by appointing Hannah Graham as area director. Mrs Graham steps up from her position as associate director, her promotion coming as part of a six-figure investment by the firm in its North Berwick office.
Property firm Lomond Group has continued its expansion in Scotland with the acquisition of Tay Letting. The firm, which has offices in Glasgow, Dundee, and Edinburgh, will become part of the DJ Alexander brand and substantially increase the firm’s presence in Glasgow, Dundee and the wider
Shelter Scotland, who acted on behalf of the appellants in the case of Manson and Downie v Turner and Turner, highlights the significance of the Upper Tribunal's decision in relation to the correct approach to assessing reasonableness specifically in relation to ground 1 and the
Badenoch & Strathspey has become only the second part of Scotland to have a control zone for short-term lets (STLs) after the rules came into force yesterday.
There could be around 22,000 fewer homes available to rent in Scotland at the start of 2024 than just a year ago, according to a survey by the largest landlord membership body in the country. A survey of its members by the Scottish Association of Landlords (SAL) also found the biggest reasons for th
Welfare
See all articlesJust 8.5% of private rental homes are likely to be affordable to Universal Credit claimants, despite increases to the amount of housing benefit they can access from next month. Local Housing Allowance will increase from 1 April for the first time since April 2020. Yet Savills research has found the
Plans have been unveiled for a new Scottish benefit to provide continued support to around 66,000 adults with a disability or long-term health condition. Under new proposals, eligible people who receive Disability Living Allowance through the UK Government’s Department for Work and Pensions wo
Age Scotland has identified £1,577,341.81 of unclaimed benefits for older people who called their helpline in 2023, more than double the figure for the previous year, and a record amount for the charity. Scotland’s national charity for older people said the amount – a remarkable 13
Changes to a key Scottish Government benefit will see an estimated 20,000 people able to access money to help with the cost of food shopping for the first time.
The Scottish Child Payment was helping the families of more than 327,000 children at the end of December last year, official statistics have shown. The £25-a-week payment helps families as part of a wider package of Scottish Government actions to tackle child poverty and support people during