Kieran Findlay and Jimmy Black step outside the Scottish social housing bubble to consider the impact of housing design in the aftermath of a disaster.
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See all articlesUrban regeneration company Clyde Gateway has appointed Martin Joyce as its new executive director for regeneration to help boost further investment into the east end of Glasgow and Rutherglen. Mr Joyce joins the urban regeneration company having worked in a range of infrastructure and regeneration r
Home building sector representative body Homes for Scotland (HFS) has announced the appointment of Kevin Murphy as its new head of planning. With a career spanning more than 20 years, Mr Murphy joins from Persimmon Homes where he was planning manager, leading on planning applications, undertaking pr
Ann Davie has been appointed as the next head of East Dunbartonshire Council’s workforce. The move follows a robust recruitment and selection process which concluded this week.
Eildon Housing has appointed Ross Kilshaw and Hannah MacLeod as new board members to its governing body. Ross Kilshaw is managing partner of Cullen Kilshaw LLP, a firm of solicitors/estate agents which spans across the Scottish Borders. Ross’s specialism is in residential property.
Rental communities developer and operator Moda Group has made key appointments to support expansion in its rental operations. Moda has implemented two new senior management boards across development and operations which will work with the executive board to drive day-to-day performance and enha
Opinion
See all articlesHelen Raftery, head of data protection complaints at the Information Comissioner's Office (ICO), discusses the importance of data protection in the housing sector, highlighting common issues like inappropriate data disclosures and failures in record-keeping, and offers guidance to housing orga
Dear Editor, I refer to Shelter Scotland’s comments in yesterday’s Scottish Housing News, SHR updates thematic report on homelessness services in Scotland.
Jimmy Black reflects on a conversation with architect Laurence Wood about rebuilding homes after natural disasters. Seeing your home completely destroyed by a typhoon, an earthquake, or an airstrike must be one of the worst things that can happen to you. Once your government and the international ai
Bruce Robertson, lending manager for Scotland at specialist property finance lender Atelier, looks at the challenges that Scotland’s housing market is facing in 2024 and beyond. It is no surprise that Edinburgh Council and, most recently, Glasgow Council have declared housing emergencies. The
Paralympian curling athlete & Accessibility Ambassador for Horizon Housing, Aileen Neilson, reflects on issues raised at the first ever Scottish Parliament for disabled persons last weekend and looks ahead to the UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities on Sunday, December 3rd. It was a
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

Fanchea Kelly has been at the centre of events in Scottish housing since the 1980s, and will soon leave Blackwood after a stellar career. Jimmy Black asked her to share some memories with Scottish Housing News. Over 9,000 miles from Scotland, Fanchea Kelly was sitting in an Australian radio studio i

Scottish Housing News Podcast
See all articlesKieran Findlay and Jimmy Black step outside the Scottish social housing bubble to consider the impact of housing design in the aftermath of a disaster.
Kieran Findlay is joined by Steve Malone and Johnny Cadell, both principal architects at Architecture & Design Scotland, and Grant Baxter, the planning & building standards team leader at Clackmannanshire Council, to tell the story of a town centre development at Primrose Street in Alloa. To
It is difficult to remember a time when global, UK and national events have aligned so acutely to heap even more pressure on Scotland's local housing systems. Committed professional sectors from across the housing, homelessness and refugee sectors gathered at Scotland's Annual Homelessness Conferenc
Scottish Housing Day took place last month to celebrate careers across housing by showcasing the variety of roles and routes into the sector and making the case for housing to be recognised as an important and valued career. But it also served to raise awareness of the need to replace a largely agei
While financial pressures have undoubtedly played a huge part in a slowdown of new homes being delivered, there is a strong sense among housebuilders that the planning process is also having a detrimental impact. A recent survey published by our sister publication Scottish Construction Now found tha
Black's Blog
See all articlesJimmy Black reflects on a conversation with architect Laurence Wood about rebuilding homes after natural disasters. Seeing your home completely destroyed by a typhoon, an earthquake, or an airstrike must be one of the worst things that can happen to you. Once your government and the international ai
Jimmy Black ponders on placemaking, and a 20 minute neighbourhood which is 864 years old When I think about it, I grew up in a perfect ‘place’. In our burgh of 2,000 people there were shops … an ironmonger, draper, newsagent, three butchers, two bakers, one fishmonger, one shoe sh

Jimmy Black thinks the rest of us have a lot to learn from Perth & Kinross, and Aberdeenshire. Let’s ask a hard question. Why is homelessness so low in Perth & Kinross when over in West Dunbartonshire it’s very high? Why are the figures in Aberdeenshire so much better than they a

What is a housing professional and how do you become such a thing? Jimmy Black tries to think like a 17-year-old school leaver.

Jimmy Black reflects on recent criticism of Scotland's planning system and outlines an interesting legal case which involves NPF4 and West Lothian's Local Development Plan.

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 articlesOchil View Housing Association has given a helping hand this winter to more than 400 tenants at its recent ‘Meet, Heat and Eat’ events.
Energy efficiency specialist Warmworks has set up a new office in Stornoway ahead of delivering insulation support to homes across the Western Isles. Warmworks will be responsible for administering the Heat and Energy Efficient Scotland: Area-Based Scheme (HEES:ABS) on behalf of Comhairle nan Eilean
The innovative use of wind farm profits has earned Fyne Homes a fuel poverty award. The housing association, which is based on the Isle of Bute and manages 1,600 homes across Argyll, was honoured in the ‘Outstanding Tenant Support’ category at Energy Action Scotland’
A £420,000 fund set up by Perth & Kinross Council to help people through the cost-of-living crisis last winter saw over 16,500 visits to local Warm Spaces, according to a new report.
Dumfries and Galloway Council is developing a Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategy (LHEES) in response to the Scottish Government's guidance. The strategy aims to improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from heating buildings.
Homelessness
See all articlesA new report which lays bare the state of homelessness in Dundee and the city council’s efforts to tackle it is set to go before councillors next week.
Preventing homelessness and supporting vulnerable residents is at the heart of plans agreed by North Lanarkshire Council's housing committee.
A temporary accommodation unit in East Kilbride set for closure after being deemed unsuitable to meet long-term temporary accommodation needs has now closed. Lindsay House has provided safe and welcoming accommodation for a variety of service users since even before South Lanarkshire Council was cre
Aberdeen Cyrenians, the north-east charity that aims to eradicate social exclusion, has landed a unique opportunity to swell its funds - just as demand for its services reaches a critical level. However, Aberdeen Cyrenians faces a race against time to capitalise on the pre-Christmas cash boost, and
An estimated 244 people died while homeless in Scotland in 2022, according to new figures from National Records of Scotland.
PRS
See all articlesUniversity of Glasgow housing student Kevin Howe has received a prestigious award for his work outlining the implications of rent controls in the private rented sector. Kevin, who is studying for an MSc in housing studies, was awarded the Malcolm Smith Memorial Award by CIH Scotland. The accolade, j
The average rent for a 2-bedroom private rented property increased by 14.3% in a year to reach an average of £841 per month, up £105 per month compared with the previous year, official figures have revealed.
The shortfall between Local Housing Allowance (LHA) and the actual cost of renting a home in Scotland's private rented sector (PRS) has been highlighted in new research commissioned by CIH Scotland in partnership with Fife Council.
Glasgow's rental market has experienced an unprecedented surge, with a shortage of rental flats driving demand and prices to a decade high, according to local letting agency Rosevale Letting. “Rental returns are the strongest we’ve seen for the last seven to eight years or maybe even ten
Property investment house Cox & Co has expanded its operation to include an estate agency division. The new arm of the Edinburgh-based business has five brokers covering the city and surrounding areas, with staffing set to quadruple in the next 24 months as the firm extends across the country.
Welfare
See all articlesThe voices and experiences of West of Scotland Housing Association (WSHA) tenants were presented to the UK Government this week as part of a new report by the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) outlining the devastating impact the cost-of-living crisis has had on social housing tenan
The families of more than 323,000 under-16s were benefitting from Scottish Child Payment at the end of September, official statistics show. New figures published this week show the payment of £25 per week was reaching 323,315 children - an increase of more than 7,000 compared to 30 June 2023.
The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) has warned MPs they must take immediate action after a new report laid bare the devastating impact of the cost-of-living crisis on Scotland’s social tenants. Following last week’s announcements in the Autumn Statement and a
A new report has highlighted the ongoing range of work being done to tackle child poverty in Perth and Kinross. The 5th Local Child Poverty Action Report (LCPAR) by Perth & Kinross Council and NHS Tayside says that child poverty rates in Perth and Kinross have remained stable between 2017 and 20
Changes to work capability assessments announced in the Autumn Statement are "deeply concerning" and could mean people receive less support based on a change of criteria rather than a change in their health, social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville has said. While welcoming the fact that&nbs