As the country remains gripped in a national housing emergency, sector body Homes for Scotland (HFS), whose members deliver the majority of the country’s new homes of all tenures, expressed disappointment at the lack of prominence, urgent interventionism and detail relating to housing delivery in today’s Programme for Government.
HFS Chief Executive Jane Wood said:
“There are some encouraging elements in the 2025/26 Programme for Government, including the commitment to make it easier to invest and do business in Scotland by ensuring future regulation is scrutinised for its impact on business and investment, and the assessment of regulatory controls in housing by the end of 2025. Much more is required, however, given the sheer scale of the challenge that faces our country.
“It has nearly been a year since the Scottish Parliament declared a national housing emergency and in the interim we have seen record numbers of children living in temporary accommodation, all sector starts and completions continue to fall and absolutely no support for our struggling SME home builders (who are so crucial to increasing the supply of high quality energy efficient homes in rural areas and on brownfield sites) despite our extensive work to produce recommendations for the Scottish Government to take forward.
“The recommendations of the Housing Investment Taskforce are still yet to be published and we still do not have any clearly defined operational status regarding the much-vaunted Planning Hub. Calls for an annual all-tenure target for the delivery of 25,000 homes made by a range of charities and business organisations over the last week or so have also gone unheeded.
“We needed so much more from today’s announcement.
“Today we needed a bold interventionist approach to increase housing delivery across all tenures in Scotland. Unfortunately, the housing emergency remains without an emergency response, with the Scottish Government missing a clear opportunity to reset the scale of its ambition on housing and ensure both national and local policy is shaped to tackle the housing emergency head on.
“Home builders are waiting to play their part in delivering Scotland’s all-tenure housing but it feels that we are in a landscape where the government seems unable or unwilling to fully acknowledge just how important housing is to Scotland’s social wellbeing and economic success.”