Craig Sanderson

An article on Tuesday 20th August 2024 in a daily newsletter from England called Housing Today describes the situation south of the Border (which for years has seen a trend away from the delivery of social housing to more unaffordable accommodation) but the arguments are equally applicable in Scotland given recent swingeing cuts in the AHSP.

Interestingly, the writer has a go at defining ‘affordable’ housing - “homes available at up to 80% of market rents”.

This creates clear water between what is effectively mid-market rent accommodation and social housing.

He confirms that such a distinction is valid by arguing throughout his piece for more ‘social’ at the expense of ‘affordable’ housing.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Government continues to fail to conclude its two-years-old deliberations to arrive at a widespread acceptable definition of ‘affordable housing’ while relying on the glossary in its NPF4 that includes social housing as a subset of ‘affordable’.

Articles like those in Scottish Housing News on the same day continue to conflate the two.

So, £9m Loretto development underway in Paisley says Loretto Housing Association is building “48 affordable homes for social rent at East Lane in Paisley.”

And, Work starts on 28-home affordable housing development in Glasgow describes a development of 28 new homes, all of which are for social rent by New Gorbals HA.

Let’s hope that Renfrewshire and Glasgow City councils are not so imprecise when it comes to reporting to the Scottish Government the number of new homes for social rent they have achieved in the light of its target of 70000+ in the ten-year period ending in 2032.

• Craig Sanderson is a former chief executive of Link Housing and a member of the Edinburgh Poverty Commission