Sector body Homes for Scotland (HFS), whose members deliver the majority of new homes across all tenures, has called on the Scottish Government to urgently implement the radical intervention required to tackle the escalating housing emergency one year on from since its declaration at Holyrood.
Jane Wood, HFS Chief Executive, said:
“Today now marks a year since the Scottish Parliament declared a national housing emergency. Twelve months on and we are still nowhere near addressing the scale of this challenge. Indeed, we don’t even have an official exit strategy or metric from the Scottish Government to tell us when the emergency might be over.
“This simply isn’t acceptable. We require more than what can only be described as a business-as-usual response from the Scottish Government which regularly cites arbitrary comparisons regarding housing delivery with other parts of the UK rather than acknowledge the 693,000 Scottish households currently living in housing need. The reality of the situation in Scotland is stark and it demands an emergency response.
“Over the last twelve months, we have seen homelessness reach another record high with over 16,500 households (including more than 10,000 children) in temporary accommodation, and housing starts and completions across all sectors continue to fall across consecutive years.
“Indeed, the significance of the housing challenge facing Scotland and need for bold and radical leadership to tackle this is now being amplified across business and academia. Over the last number of weeks we have seen the David Hume Institute, Prosper and the CBI clearly call for a rethinking of housing policy to grow the economy and protect the social wellbeing of the people of Scotland.
“Issuing a clear call to deliver an all-tenure target of at least 25,000 new homes each year in Scotland would give clear strategic direction and intent between national and local policymakers to prioritise new housing delivery. Returning to pre-recession levels of home building in Scotland would generate £3.7bn in total economic output to the Scottish economy and support 87,000 high quality jobs each year.”