Deputy chair Andrew Watson summarises the Scottish Housing Regulator's latest meeting with its Rural & Islands Landlord Group. We held the fifth meeting of the Rural & Islands landlord group on 6 December 2024. This is one of the three standing groups of senior people from Registered Social

Karen Gatherum delves into the complexities and inconsistencies of Edinburgh's new short-term let regulations, highlighting the challenges faced by those wishing to operate short-term lets and the potential negative impact on the city's tourism capacity. Short-term lettings has been one of the bigge

With elections in Scotland and Wales approaching in 2026, Professor Ken Gibb outlines pressing housing issues and opportunities for policy reform in the first in a new regular series of blogs about housing.

Cruden Group MD Steven Simpson discusses the outlook for house building in the year ahead and reveals why 2025 is a time of opportunity and optimism. As 2025 dawns, the housebuilding industry finds itself at a crossroads, still facing economic and political challenges, yet buoyed by increased opport

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

“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.

Following 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.

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.

Brio Retirement Living has opened its Landale Court in Chapelton as a ‘Warm Hub’ this winter to help local people in need of warmth or companionship.

More than 456,000 people are due to receive inter Heating Payments totalling £26.8 million this winter, social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville will tell MSPs today. Updating the Scottish Parliament on support with fuel costs for people on low incomes, Ms Somerville will confirm the S

Acting climate action minister Alasdair Allan has called on the UK Government to direct "urgent and proportionate action" to protect tens of thousands of Scottish households ahead of the planned switch-off of the Radio Teleswitch Service (RTS) later this year. Many energy meters in Scotland presentl

In 2023-24, The British Gas Energy Trust (the Trust) was able to support more than 64,000 households across Britain with money and energy advice, emergency fuel payments, white goods and energy debt grants.

Fife Council is appealing for people with a spare room to take part in a scheme providing in-home accommodation and support to young people who are leaving care or facing homelessness. 

A Glasgow-based fashion brand has teamed up with Homeless Project Scotland to launch a new scheme to help support people experiencing homelessness this winter.

A vital community space based in Nicholson Square in Edinburgh, which serves 150-200 people experiencing homelessness every week, is facing closure today after unexpectedly being served an eviction notice. 

Scottish outdoor clothing manufacturer The Ootsider is to step up its help for people who are homeless after being awarded £40,000 grant funding from First Port.

A former landlord who alleged that his tenants had stolen a set of shutters and failed to pay for replacement carpets has been refused permission to appeal his two cases against them to the Upper Tribunal for Scotland after it upheld the First-tier Tribunal’s decision in both cases that no los

The Association of Scotland’s Self-Caterers (ASSC) has highlighted a new report which it said "comprehensively refutes the false narrative" that short-term lets are driving the housing crisis in Edinburgh and beyond.

Clan Gordon, the Edinburgh letting agency, has been recognised for its exceptional customer service and commitment to raising industry standards, securing three prestigious awards in 2024.  The agency received accolades at two major events in the lettings industry: 

Cairn Group has marked a quarter century of building a ‘whole market’ residential property agency across Scotland’s central belt. Within the last year, a series of acquisitions and a comprehensive management restructure with the promotion of its management team to create joint mana

More than 456,000 people are due to receive inter Heating Payments totalling £26.8 million this winter, social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville will tell MSPs today. Updating the Scottish Parliament on support with fuel costs for people on low incomes, Ms Somerville will confirm the S

West Lothian Council has approved plans to reduce the priority level for Scottish Welfare Fund grants, which will mean more local people will be eligible. The council administers both Crisis and Community Care grants from the Scottish Welfare Fund, to support vulnerable West Lothian families. Crisis

Thousands of children from disadvantaged backgrounds will benefit from free breakfasts, thanks to £3 million from the Scottish Government. Announced in the draft Budget for 2025-26, Bright Start Breakfasts will help more primary school children get a healthy start to the day. The initiative wi

Payments to people in receipt of benefits will be protected from inflation after the Scottish Parliament passed the Social Security (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill.