A £150 million deal to transform the site of the former Marks & Spencer store on Sauchiehall Street into a major mixed-use development has been concluded. Fusion Group, the developer behind the project, has purchased the site from the retailer to deliver new student homes and an improved s
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See all articlesBerwickshire Housing Association (BHA) has appointed Hugh Carr as its new chair. As a current board member, Hugh takes over the position from Jim McDevitt who has come to the end of his term as chair but remains on the board for one final year.
Rettie has hired Daniel Cohen as an associate director from Nicol Estate Agents, as the property firm looks to further strengthen its leadership team in the Southside of Glasgow. Mr Cohen will be based at Rettie’s Newton Mearns office, working closely with area director Kay Blair who joined fr
Places for People (PfP) has appointed Andrew Usher as its new group managing director. Andrew was previously PfP’s group development director, a role he had held since joining from Countryside Partnership in May 2023.
SHAX, an established homeless support charity in Dumfries and Galloway, has appointed Colin Callander-Bone as the new chief. Colin, who has a strong retail and people management background, took over the role from Joyce Harkness, who after 10 years at the helm, retired from her role as the soc
John Hannigan, CEO of Circle Voluntary Housing Association and former chair of CIH Ireland’s Advisory Board, has been approved and appointed as chair of CIH’s governing board at the organisation’s sixtieth annual meeting on Monday 14 October. John takes over from Geraldine Howley O
Opinion
See all articlesUK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE) director Ken Gibb shares insights on Local Housing Systems Analysis (LHSA), its impact on Govan, and how it’s driving regeneration in Glasgow. The Local Housing Systems Analysis Backstory
Campion Homes joint managing director Dougie Herd believes last month's Housing and Social Care Accessibility Summit will result in a step forward for accessible homes in Scotland. On 26 September, I had the privilege of speaking as part of a panel at the Housing and Social Care Accessibility Summit
ESPC CEO, Paul Hilton, discusses the rising popularity of this traditional property and asks why more aren’t available to satisfy growing buyer demand. When you imagine the kind of property young buyers want to live in, you’d be forgiven for thinking immediately of glossy city apartments
UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE) director Professor Ken Gibb explores the evolving challenges and opportunities in Scottish housing policy, focusing on renewing the Affordable Housing Supply Programme. In five years, Scotland has moved from the ambition of the 20 years strategy o
Chris McGinn from PfH Scotland highlights the challenges and opportunities of retrofitting homes across 20 small islands off the west coast of Scotland I’ve worked on hundreds of energy efficiency projects over the years, but in 2023 a request came through that was a bit different.
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 articlesAge Scotland has written to the UK and Scottish governments urging them to outline plans to tackle the crisis facing the lowest income pensioners affected by the loss of the Winter Fuel Payment. In a letter to Scottish Secretary, Ian Murray, Age Scotland has highlighted recent figures identifying 20
In partnership with gas distribution network SGN, Changeworks has launched a new one-of-a-kind service for housing associations in Scotland to provide easy access to energy advice for their tenants.
The Ofgem Energy Industry Voluntary Redress Scheme opened for applications yesterday with its largest funding round since the scheme was established.
The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) in partnership with HACT has released the evaluation report into its Fuel Support Fund from 2021-2024 which demonstrates the significant impact the Fund has had on social housing tenants across Scotland, generating over £37.5 million in s
The annual Park Homes Warm Home Discount Scheme run by Charis is now open. Permanent park home and static caravan residents across England, Scotland and Wales can apply for a £150 payment to help towards their energy costs. The Charis Park Homes Warm Home Discount is an Ofgem-regulated, multi-
Homelessness
See all articlesScotland is set to face a homelessness crisis of alarming proportions by 2040 if current trends persist, according to a new report. The study by full-service law firm Shakespeare Martineau has forecasted a 90% increase in homelessness applications to more than 4,100 annually, while at least 7,000 ho
A collective of organisations that support people affected by homelessness has warned that people forced to sleep rough in Scotland could die this winter because of a severe lack of accommodation amid record levels of homelessness.
The Homeless World Cup co-founder and social entrepreneur Mel Young MBE has won the coveted Edinburgh Award. The award was officially presented last week at a civic reception at the City Chambers by the Lord Provost, Robert Aldridge.
Almost 1000 people either homeless or facing the prospect of losing their home were rehoused by Dundee City Council last year, according to a new report.
SHAX, an established homeless support charity in Dumfries and Galloway, has appointed Colin Callander-Bone as the new chief. Colin, who has a strong retail and people management background, took over the role from Joyce Harkness, who after 10 years at the helm, retired from her role as the soc
PRS
See all articlesThe cost of renting in Scotland’s PRS is beginning to ease whilst policy measures for rent controls continue their journey through Parliament.
The Scottish Government Housing Registers Team has officially endorsed Propertymark Qualifications’ SCQF Level 6 Certificate in Property Agency (Lettings). Following a thorough review, the Scottish Government concluded that the qualification sufficiently addresses the scope of work required by
A membership survey conducted by the Association of Scotland’s Self-Caterers (ASSC) has found that the Scottish Government’s short-term let (STL) regulations are causing a mental health crisis among small business owners.
Rettie has hired Daniel Cohen as an associate director from Nicol Estate Agents, as the property firm looks to further strengthen its leadership team in the Southside of Glasgow. Mr Cohen will be based at Rettie’s Newton Mearns office, working closely with area director Kay Blair who joined fr
Private renters in Wales could soon see significant changes to their rights after the Senedd’s Local Government and Housing Committee endorsed calls for the Welsh Government to extend tenant protections. In a report published this week, the committee has made 13 recommendations set to sh
Welfare
See all articlesThe Court of Session has granted permission to proceed in the judicial review challenge against decisions to cut to the Winter Fuel Payment.
New research shows the full impact the two-child limit policy is causing to children and families in Scotland and its critical role in entrenching child poverty. The report, Every Penny Counts - The Struggle to Survive on The Two-Child Limit, was written by Unity Consulting Scotland and commissioned
A new disability benefit for people of State Pension age opens today for new applications from people living in five local authority areas. Pension Age Disability Payment is the 15th benefit administered by Social Security Scotland. It is for people of State Pension age and over who are disab
As many as 20,000 private renters, including 10,000 children, will be pulled into poverty in 2025/26 if the UK Government doesn't commit to unfreezing Local Housing Allowance (LHA) in the Budget on October 30, JRF has warned.
Community-based housing associations are finding it increasingly challenging to support new tenants, some of whom are waiting months for basic items due to extreme pressures on the Scottish Welfare Fund, the Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations (GWSF) has found.