Insight

“The best way to encourage tenant participation is to be a terrible landlord”. It sounds like an essay topic for a housing student, but these were the words of David Bookbinder spoken on the Scottish Housing News Podcast. SHN editor Kieran Findlay and I recorded an episode on tenant part

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

Garrett Grainger, research associate at the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE), discusses the steps that can be taken to help end LGBT homelessness. Scotland has an ambitious plan to end homelessness. Local authorities in Scotland have a statutory duty to secure settled accomm

Social Housing Magazine has produced an interesting article on audit provision in Scotland. Using the 2021-22 audited financial statements (AFS) returns compared to the 2017-18 AFS returns from the Scottish Housing Regulator, it presents some interesting data and perhaps enables some thoughts on how

Prof Ken Gibb and Dr Vikki McCall discuss the importance of accounting for housing support services, highlighting the critical role they play in supporting independent living and integrating housing with health and social care while also emphasising the challenges in defining and tracking these serv

Jimmy Black wonders if tenants will end up paying for zero emissions heating systems, and notes that industry innovators like River Clyde Homes and Warmworks are finding ways to reduce that risk.

Duncan Smith, River Clyde Homes' energy & sustainbility manager, looks at the economic argument for decarbonising our buildings. Over the coming decade, we have to decarbonise heat and make our buildings as efficient as possible to meet our climate change objectives and have any chance of s

Caroline Maciver and Lynda Ross from Burness Paull round up the developers that have signed up for the Scottish Safer Buildings Accord and what the commitments entail. Eight large developers have signed letters to Scottish Ministers expressing their support for the Scottish Gover

Horizon Housing CEO Lorna Cameron calls on housing minister Paul McLennan to move accessible housing higher up the political agenda. The appointment of Paul McLennan as the first dedicated Housing Minister since 2016 brings fresh hope along with expectations that accessibility, one of the most urgen

Gareth Young, knowledge exchange and impact fellow at CaCHE’s, introduces the organisation's first Pride month campaign, as part of its ongoing equality, diversity and inclusion work. Over the course of the month, we will be highlighting research, good practice and people’s stories and e

As the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) launches its ‘Housing at Scotland’s Heart’ campaign at its Annual Conference today, CEO Sally Thomas outlines why Scotland’s housing associations are key to ending homelessness, tackling poverty and dealing w

Graduate architect Quita Hynd shares her final year project which considered whether to retrofit the recently demolished 219-245 Blackness Road tenements in Dundee. One module available for final year 5th year Architecture students, entitled Macro Micro, explored ‘deep retrofit&

Following the latest episode of the Scottish Housing News Podcast in which Nick Pollard and Julie McDowell share their environmental, social and governance (ESG) expertise, Jimmy Black ponders what this means for other housing associations and their boards.

Tracey Varnava introduces the University of Southampton's Homematters2 Project which looks to tackle household debt and eviction.

Following National Grid's announcement of the largest grid overhaul in generations, Forster Group chair John Forster shares his own commentary on the news. Last week, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported strong headwinds in favour of investment in renewable energy technologies across the g