Black's Blog

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.

Jimmy Black reflects on a conversation with Helen Murdoch from the Salvation Army and Janet Haugh from Right There.

Jimmy Black picks up themes from the latest episode of the Scottish Housing News Podcast, with SFHA’s Sally Thomas, Holyrood PR’s Chris Fairbairn and co-host Kieran Findlay.

Jimmy Black picks out points from a recent discussion with housing minister Paul McLennan, and Kieran Findlay, editor of Scottish Housing News.

Jimmy Black reflects on the domestic abuse provisions in the current Housing (Scotland) Bill, and picks up themes from the latest episode of the SHN podcast which spotlights good practice for landlords.

Jimmy Black explains what he thinks the proposed new duty to “Ask” if people are homeless, & “Act” to help them, actually means.

Jimmy Black considers rent controls and predicts that nothing will change.

“The heat’s already there, we’re just moving it”. Jimmy Black mulls over a conversation with Eoghan Maguire, director of heat networks - Scotland at Vattenfall UK. Getting people to work together is seldom easy, particularly when it involves money and hard decisions. It makes

Jimmy Black considers whether the social housing sector and the Scottish Government are effectively measuring the carbon cost of home improvements.

Jimmy Black is looking for credible solutions to Scotland's housing emergency and wants SHN readers to help.

After recording an episode of the Scottish Housing News Podcast on the subject of the proposed rent adjudication scheme for the private rented sector, Jimmy Black shares his own experiences.

Jimmy Black and Kieran Findlay spent 45 minutes of the SHN podcast discussing just about everything important in Scottish housing with the hugely experienced Craig Stirrat, Group CEO of Grampian Housing Association. Jimmy picks out the bits he found most fascinating... Council house stock transfer?