Black's Blog

Housing has a minister all to itself for the first time in a while. Paul McLennan MSP has been appointed and on the face of things, he’s well qualified for the job. He served 15 years in local government; he sits on the Local Government and Housing Committee; and he’s a member of 24 cro

Jimmy Black warms to the government’s plans for passive houses. I may have groaned when I heard that all new homes are to be ‘passive houses’, complying with a strict standard covering airtightness and energy use. I thought… here’s another green inspired policy lunge w

Scottish Housing News correspondent Jimmy Black chuckles his way around the first day of CIH Scotland's Housing Festival in Glasgow which grappled with the very serious issue of innovation within the social housing sector. Housing events can be cheerful, and the final session at yesterday’s CI

Jimmy Black on ALACHO’s efforts to tackle damp, homelessness and the need to house refugees.

Bill Banks is retiring as chief executive officer of Kingdom Group, but he still has plenty to say about Scottish housing, writes Jimmy Black. I interviewed Bill Banks in Glenrothes for our Housing Champions series, featuring Kingdom’s achievements in areas like employability, zero carbon home

The ongoing regeneration of Dalmarnock and the surrounding area has long fascinated Jimmy Black, both from a personal and professional point of view. He trails the latest episode of the Scottish Housing News Podcast and more.

Scottish Housing News Podcast co-host Jimmy Black follows up his previous musings on the Passivhaus standard following a call from across the pond.

Jimmy Black reflects on the Passivhaus standard after a wide-ranging chat with Josiah Lockhart, CEO of Changeworks, the latest guest on the Scottish Housing News Podcast. Please don’t blame Josiah Lockhart, CEO of Changeworks, for what I write in this article. That would be far from fair, as h

Is it fair to say the housing sector workforce is predominantly white? Old white middle-class man Jimmy Black reflects on issues raised by the latest episode of the Scottish Housing News Podcast.

The latest guests on the Scottish Housing News Podcast are gathering stories about the way Scotland’s housing services handle people with protected characteristics. Podcast co-host Jimmy Black says “we only have laws against discrimination because some people do it”. Read on ...

Jimmy Black and Kieran Findlay spent 40 minutes online with Patrick Harvie, minister for zero carbon buildings, active travel and tenants' rights. Jimmy picks out some of the main points, mostly concerning the Scottish Government’s emergency legislation designed to give tenants relief from the

Jimmy Black reflects on Caledonia Housing Association's ‘agile’ staff strategy and gets misty-eyed about his old place of work in a Broughty Ferry mansion house. I came across the term “agile” when working in technology-enabled care. A bunch of expert software developers crea

Let’s start with the basics. We should build houses and plan communities that people can live in. Ok… which people? I’d like to answer “everyone” but that’s not what we do. Is the answer “people who can drive, think clearly and are able to walk and climb st

Jimmy Black rounds up a lively discussion on the Scottish Housing News Podcast about tenant participation and how it has evolved since the pandemic. Who gets to have housing fun? Not the staff and not the board members at their very serious conferences. It’s the tenants who have the fun.

Jimmy Black ponders rent freezes, inflation, land reform, housebuilding, planning and community buy-outs, all in one blog ... and notes a sterling lobbying effort from Homes for Scotland on National Planning Framework 4. Much has happened since Scottish Housing News published the recent podcast with