The new award for ‘Excellence in Accessibility and Inclusion’ will form part of this year’s Scottish Home Awards, sponsored by Ross & Liddell.

Horizon Housing Association, part of Link Group, has developed the award to recognise best practice in creating accessible and inclusive housing in a new development or retrofit project. It is hoped that entries will showcase the diversity of work taking place across the sector to build and reconfigure homes to market-leading levels.

Lorna Cameron, chief executive officer of Horizon Housing Association, said: “Anyone might need an adapted or accessible home at some stage of their lives, which is why we are campaigning to have more readily accessible design in new homes. Demand for accessible housing is expected to rise as the population ages and more people have mobility or other health issues.

“Accessible design features can enable people to stay in their own homes for longer and can have an enormous impact on their health and wellbeing. Accessible design can also reduce public costs in delayed hospital discharges and in providing social care and places in care homes.

“We are proud to help create an award that recognises housing which is designed to be inclusive and adaptable to people’s changing needs. It’s important that homes are suitable for people with any disability - physical, sensory, cognitive or neurodiverse. We must create more housing which allows everyone to live as independently as possible, with maximum dignity and comfort.”

The 17th annual Scottish Home Awards is now open for entry until 20 March 2024.

Kirsten Speirs, director of KDMedia and founder of the programme, said: “This important award will give us the opportunity to showcase some market leading design and innovative concepts in accessible housing, particularly any design that could be easily adopted into mainstream housing. We are delighted to be working with Horizon Housing Association and look forward to reviewing the contenders.”