More Homes Scotland, Housing strategy
The successful Scottish housing strategy “More Homes Scotland”[1], was formulated in response to the region’s increasingly high affordable housing need. Annual targets for social and affordable housing were set and met through proactive strategic interventions.
Description
These included capital grants for social housing construction and funding for shared equity affordable homeownership. There were also grants to construct affordable rental housing for key workers: nurses, teachers, policemen, electricians and so on.
The Scottish government set an overall implementation budget, providing robust information on housing needs to every local government area, which was disaggregated into private, affordable and social rental housing segments, as well as the needs for affordable homeownership. This enabled local government to focus on the planning and investment required to deliver these localized housing needs. As part of the Strategy, the Housing Needs Demand Assessment tool[1] was developed. This operates throughout Scotland and communicates reliable housing need information to local stakeholders, informing and building consensus for joint local action and investment.
[1]Government of Scotland, “Housing Need and Demand Assessment”. Available at https://www.gov.scot/publications/hnda-tool
Actors involved
- Government of Scotland
Scale
National
More information
The Strategy also aimed to improve existing dwellings. For example, it enhanced private rental sector regulation, facilitating longer-term tenancies, strengthened legal dispute mechanisms, and abolished “no-fault” evictions, all leading to more balanced tenant-landlord relations. Energy efficiency standards were also introduced in rental housing, and the rights of homeless people to adequate housing have gained significant focus as well.
To promote home ownership among younger people, the Strategy provided subsidies to young first-home buyers, to be recycled when properties are resold. Long-term soft loans are repaid or recycled when equity loans are returned.
https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Housing
An initiative of:
