Craig Stirrat, group CEO of Grampian Housing Association, and Chris McGinn, commercial manager at PfH Scotland, highlight the unique set of challenges facing Scottish social landlords right now, and share why strategic procurement matters more than ever. A significant share of social housing expendi

New VELUX managing director Alex O’Dell sets out why Scotland needs a new vision for healthy, affordable housing. With the Holyrood election upon us, Scotland is at a critical moment. With 693,000 households in some form of housing need, the country faces a challenge that extends far beyond co

Ahead of the Scottish election, Jennifer Lewis, RSM's senior analyst for real estate & construction, argues that incentivising developers is key to meeting government housebuilding targets. Most parties have shown a shared ambition to build a significant number of new homes, with targets varying

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

Below is a full transcript of episode 81 of the Scottish Housing News Podcast titled 'How Scotland is gearing up for Awaab's Law with Gregor Morrison and Bob Cairney’. Listen to or watch the episode here.

Scotland’s leading voices on accessible housing have urged the Scottish Government to put inclusive homes at the heart of its agenda ahead of May’s election, warning that the country is “nowhere near prepared” for the scale of demographic change coming.

Below is a full transcript of episode 80 of the Scottish Housing News Podcast titled 'The Scottish Accessible Housing Network with Michael Driscoll and Jill Pritchard’. Listen to or watch the episode here.

Fragmented ownership, chronic underinvestment, and slow legislative progress are pushing thousands of tenements into deepening disrepair, but with cross-party and cross-sector support for compulsory owners' associations and building reserve funds, a potential positive future could be around the corn

Jimmy Black hears that English flat owners who don’t maintain their blocks can lose their property without compensation. Should Scottish tenement owners face similar penalties?

It’s Scottish Housing Day; Jimmy Black conjures up soundscapes, and meditates on what makes a good neighbourhood.

Jimmy Black blogs on Riverside Scotland’s Housing First for Families, and Albyn’s Tenancy Sustainment Team.

Jimmy Black says the current funding system for adaptations makes no sense.

For 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

Rural and island Scots are generating the nation’s clean energy yet paying the highest bills, says Bryan Leask, chair of the Rural and Islands Fuel Poverty Action Group and chief executive of Hjaltland Housing Association.

Warmworks’ chief executive Ross Armstrong has been appointed as a member of the Committee on Fuel Poverty. The Committee, sponsored by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, provides expert advice to the UK Government on the delivery of its strategy to reduce fuel poverty in England.

More than £7.3 million in grants is being awarded to 29 organisations across England, Scotland and Wales in the thirteenth round of the Ofgem Energy Industry Voluntary Redress Scheme.

More than 800 people in Inverclyde have applied for cash to help pay their energy bills this winter, a charity has revealed. Inverclyde Council and charity Advice Direct Scotland joined forces to launch a fund worth more than £300,000 in November.

A service providing emergency accommodation for people sleeping rough over winter will be able to continue throughout the year, thanks to a funding commitment by the City of Edinburgh Council. The Welcome Centre, run by Bethany Christian Trust at the council-owned ELS House on Gorgie Road, was due t

England is facing its twelfth consecutive record high in the number of children living in temporary accommodation, according to new figures released last week. Homelessness charity Crisis said the statistics show a situation that has become “normalised” despite the scale of human impact.

Miller Homes has been named as Large Business of the Year at the British Business Awards, which took place on Thursday 30th April in Edinburgh.

Edinburgh councillors have signed a temporary accommodation contract worth up to £15.5 million, reopening the Supported Lodgings category within the city’s procurement system for the first time in several years.

Scotland’s largest privately owned property factor, Hacking & Paterson, has unveiled a refreshed leadership team featuring a major new hire after more than a century in business. Property industry heavyweight Chris Breckenridge has joined as chief growth officer, marking one of the most si

Scotland's landlords have called for the next Scottish Government to formally recognise the private rented sector's importance with a dedicated strategy. The Scottish Association of Landlords (SAL) has urged all political parties contesting the election to commit to creating a strategy that understa

Newton Property Management has appointed Martin Brown as its first non-executive director, marking a significant milestone in the company’s strategic development.  A founder of Fleet Alliance, Martin brings three decades of experience building and scaling successful businesses. He helped

Local authorities in England are receiving extra funding, training and guidance needed to fulfil their new duties ahead of new protections for tenants kicking in next month.

The Scottish Government is to commit more than £111 million to updated plans to eradicate child poverty. Bringing Hope, Building Futures aims to help keep approximately 100,000 children out of poverty in 2026-27.

The gap between what councils in England pay out in housing benefit and how much the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) reimburses them is projected to cost local government nearly £4 billion between 2017/18 to 2029/30, new analysis reveals.

People may be missing out on social security support they are entitled to due to stigma around social security, new research shows. Independent research commissioned by Social Security Scotland found that while nine in ten (91%) people agree anyone could need financial support when their circumstanc

The Scottish Child Payment has supported more than 241,000 parents and carers since its launch five years ago, helping put over £1.3 billion into the pockets of low-income families. An increase to the payment for children under one will be introduced during 2027/28, estimated to benefit around