The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) has urged the Scottish Government to reverse cuts to the affordable housing budget as it launches a campaign highlighting the country’s spiralling housing waiting lists and the impact of waiting for a social home.
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See all articlesMinisters have welcomed Parliamentary approval of three new proposed commissioners to the Scottish Land Commission (SLC). Ministers selected Dr Lucy Beattie and Dr Calum MacLeod as land commissioners and the appointment of Robert Black as tenant farming commissioner at the Scottish Land Commission,
Veterans’ Housing Scotland has welcomed Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal as the charity’s patron. Her Royal Highness assumes the role following a succession of Royal Patrons including King George V, King George VI and Her Majesty, our Late Queen.
Lar Housing Trust has appointed a very well-known figure in the housing sector to a senior role in its construction subsidiary. Peter Shepherd, former managing director at Muir Homes and ex-chair of Mactaggart & Mickel Homes Trade Board, has been appointed to the post of director at Lar Projects
Three new community board members have been added to the board of ng homes. Shawn Fernandez, Jacob Sony and Andriy Strekhaliuk joined the board at the organisation's 2024 AGM.
An interim management structure has been implemented at Bield following the departure of former CEO Dr Lynne Douglas. Debbie Collins, Bield’s chief operating officer, has been appointed interim CEO as part of the leadership shake-up.
Opinion
See all articlesVery few in Scotland’s real estate sector are currently satisfied with the existing planning system. The question then is how best to alleviate the issues that currently challenge the public and private sector parties with an interest in this key industry. Lee Murphy, a planning consultan
Mel Esquerre, an Edinburgh resident and retrofit campaigner, shares her experience of the City of Edinburgh Council's Mixed Tenure Improvement Service (MTIS) scheme and her concerns that people are being harmed as a result. In the last month alone, five different neighbours have approached me, anxio
Jocelyne Fleming, policy & public affairs lead for Scotland at the CIOB shares refreshed insights from the social housing sector one year on from an original research report. Last year I had the opportunity to work with housing association representatives to identify challenges they face in the
As the Housing (Scotland) Bill continues its passage through the Scottish Parliament, Professor Douglas Robertson's overview of the main findings of the RentBetter research project led by Indigo House and funded by the Nationwide Foundation considers affordability and rent controls. The RentBetter r
One year after the City of Edinburgh Council began implementing Scotland’s short-term let rules, Airbnb says its new analysis shows the licensing scheme has failed to have any impact on the affordable housing crisis in Edinburgh.
Housing Champions
See all articlesSHN's Housing Champions feature returns with Lorna Cameron, chief executive of Horizon Housing, who speaks to Margaret Taylor about the inextricable link between accessible housing and social care. It is almost 35 years since Lorna Cameron started her career at what was Strathclyde Regiona
Jimmy 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 articles“If we can get 90% of it right, I'd be delighted if somebody else came up with the other 10% and built on that. That's the history of social housing, right? Standing on the shoulders of giants and keeping getting better and better and better. We're just part of that chain.” Kieran Findla
Below is a full transcript of episode 63 of the Scottish Housing News Podcast titled ‘Accessible housing (part 4) with Simon Fitzpatrick'. Listen to the episode here.
“Partnership work is about relationships, it's knowing people, it's understanding each of us have roles and responsibilities but keeping in mind what we're all trying to achieve at the end of the day and that's the outcomes for people that live in our communities to allow them to thrive and su
Below is a full transcript of episode 62 of the Scottish Housing News Podcast titled ‘Accessible housing (part 3) with Jacquie Pepper and Elaine Ritchie’. Listen to the episode here.
“If we don't grab and grab with both hands that prevention agenda, do more now, given we know what's coming our way from our demographics, then we are going to be in a much worse state than we are now in 10, 20 years time.” Kieran Findlay and Jimmy Black continue their exploration of the
Black's Blog
See all articlesFollowing a conversation with Simon Fitzpatrick for the Scottish Housing News Podcast, Jimmy Black thinks about wheels and lifts, beautiful new Blackwood Homes and folks stuck up thousands of tenement stairs. Wheels. Perhaps architects should have an app which lets them push a virtual pram through e
Jimmy Black hears about some great work happening in Perth & Kinross; then thinks about people excluded from the housing market by high prices and poverty. We’re running out of words. We’ve used “housing emergency” to explain the failure of our housing markets to provide
Jimmy Black hopes Integrated Joint Boards (IJBs) will find inspiration at the Housing & Social Care Accessibility Summit, after a chat with Hanover Scotland's Angela Currie.
Jimmy Black thinks about wheelchairs, accessible houses, cycling on grass and a conversation with Pam Duncan-Glancy MSP.
Jimmy Black reflects on a conversation with Helen Murdoch from the Salvation Army and Janet Haugh from Right There.
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 articlesCharities have welcomed the Scottish Government’s decision to reinstate an energy support payment for all pensioners, describing the move as a "huge relief" for older people. Social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville confirmed yesterday that on the roll-out of the new benefit next winte
The vital need for park home residents to receive support with energy costs during the winter months has been highlighted by grant provider Charis as its Park Homes Warm Home Discount is almost fully allocated.
Five ‘Fuel Poverty Heroes’ were honoured for their work in helping thousands of people around the country out of debt and working to make their homes warmer. Fuel poverty campaigners Energy Action Scotland presented the awards at their annual conference in Glasgow.
The energy price cap is set to increase by 1.2% starting in January, energy regulator Ofgem confirmed today.
Winter fuel support for around 1,300 elderly and vulnerable Inverclyde residents is on the way thanks to a new £600,000 council fund. Members of Inverclyde Council’s policy and resources committee this week unanimously approved proposals to provide a one-off £200 payment to eligibl
Homelessness
See all articlesGrant funding of £1 million will be made available to registered social landlords and third sector partners to fund work to help sustain tenancies and prevent homelessness, the Scottish Government has announced. The funding was announced by social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville as p
Legislation to strengthen tenants’ rights and prevent homelessness has passed Stage 1 in the Scottish Parliament.
Homelessness prevention charity Right There has received outstanding results from the Care Inspectorate for two of its housing services. The unannounced inspection of Orkney Young Person’s Accommodation Service resulted in the service being graded fives across the board. Services are gra
More than 240 people died while homeless in Scotland for the second year in a row while the number who died from drug misuse deaths whilst experiencing homelessness increased by 36%, new figures have revealed.
A prison rehabilitation scheme has donated 50 sleep pods to Aberdeen Cyrenians to protect rough sleepers in severe weather.
PRS
See all articlesLegislation to strengthen tenants’ rights and prevent homelessness has passed Stage 1 in the Scottish Parliament.
Tenants staged a rally outside the Scottish Parliament last night calling on MSPs to back rent controls before they debate and vote on the Housing Bill today.
The cost of renting a private three-bed property in Scotland has increased by more than 10% on average in the past year, new figures have shown.
Leading animal welfare organisations across Scotland are calling on MSPs to support stronger protections for pet owners in the private and social rental sectors under the proposed Housing (Scotland) Bill, ahead of a crucial debate in Holyrood tomorrow.
Scotland’s landlords have the right to make a “return” on their investment, housing minister Paul McLennan has confirmed. The minister outlined his position during a question-and-answer session at Scottish Letting Day, the annual conference of the Scottish Association of Land
Welfare
See all articlesCharities have welcomed the Scottish Government’s decision to reinstate an energy support payment for all pensioners, describing the move as a "huge relief" for older people. Social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville confirmed yesterday that on the roll-out of the new benefit next winte
The Scottish Government’s five family payments have reached a landmark figure since their launch, paying over £1 billion to families across Scotland to help end child poverty, new figures have shown. The latest statistics released from Social Security Scotland reveal that between Februar
Eight million households across the UK are missing out on an estimated £23bn worth of benefits each year, such as Child Benefit, Universal Credit and Pension Credit. To financially empower its customers, Lloyds has launched ‘Benefit Calculator’, a new app feature that gives custome
Concerns about the fairness and consistency of grants awarded through the Scottish Welfare Fund (SWF) have been highlighted in a new report from the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO). The report highlights issues with the distribution of the Fund, which provides grants to those in crisis.
Social Security Scotland has published its Annual Report and Accounts, which shows that it made £1.9 billion in payments to people in Scotland from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024. The payments were made across 14 Scottish benefits, seven of which are not available anywhere else in the UK.