A strategic framework that sets out the planning policy for Scotland, NPF4 states that all new developments must make provision for at least one quarter of the total number of market homes on a site to be affordable housing.

Glasgow City Council has so far refused to enforce affordable housing provision in new developments as outlined in the policy, arguing that the city builds more than 25% affordable housing across the city as a whole.

However, according to Living Rent, all new developments need 25% affordable housing to ensure that affordable housing is being built across the city, not just in small pockets and to ensure that as much affordable housing is built as possible.

Last year, the council declared Glasgow was facing a housing emergency, with rising costs in private and social rents, increased social housing waiting lists, and an “overwhelming increase” in homelessness.

The union argues the council must take action over planning permissions and ensure new developments meet the national regulatory standard to tackle the crisis.

During the deputation, other Living Rent members gathered outside Glasgow City Chambers to protest the lack of affordable housing in the city and to call on them to deliver more affordable housing to the people of Glasgow.

Living Rent’s Glasgow chair Bianca Lopez, who handed in the deputation, said: “Glasgow City Council declared a housing emergency last year but has since failed to take meaningful action to address the issue.

“Decades of under investment in social housing, an out of control private sector and the prioritisation of luxury developments have resulted in rents being pushed up to astronomic levels across the city, trapping tenants in insecure, unsafe, expensive and undignified housing.

“We know the money exists to build the housing Glasgow needs. Implementing the NPF4 would bring much-needed affordable housing to the city and has the potential to help alleviate the housing crisis.

“The council has the power to force developers to provide much-needed social housing and the responsibility to do so for the wellbeing and safety of the people of Glasgow - our communities need affordable homes, not more luxury developments.”

Failure to address soaring rents

From the year to end September 2010 to the year to end September 2023, the region of Greater Glasgow saw the highest increase in private rents for one-, two-, three- and four-bedroom properties in Scotland.

Average rents for the most common type of private property, two-bedroom properties, rose by a staggering 86.2% over the period. When calculated on a compound annual increase basis between 2010 and 2023, this equates to an annualised growth rate of 4.9%.

Meanwhile, the demand for affordable housing continues to increase at a faster rate than its supply, as stagnant salaries fail to keep up with soaring inflation and housing costs. 

Living Rent says the issue is exacerbated by a lack of control over the development of “unaffordable luxury accommodation”, which pushes out families by focusing on one- and two- bedroom flats, and encourages gentrification by failing to integrate higher and lower cost accommodation within the same buildings.

Unaffordable rent also pushes up rents in the surrounding area, pushing working-class residents further from the city centre and forcing people to leave their communities, the union added.