A planning application has been submitted for 15 new affordable homes in the village of Braemar, Aberdeenshire. The proposal has been developed as a result of extensive community consultation and assessment of local housing need and includes 1-bed, 2-bed and 3-bed homes as well as wheelchair accessible flats. The application was made following a publiccontinue reading
Building Our Rural Future manifesto launched
Today we are launching our Building Our Rural Future manifesto, laying out ten actions we believe politicians and policy makers need to take to enable affordable rural housing and help our rural communities thrive. In preparation for the 2021 Holyrood elections, and coming ahead of this week’s debate in the Scottish Parliament around concerns overcontinue reading
Rural Housing Summit Announced for 2021
A new online summit, bringing together individuals, organisations and businesses working to tackle the rural housing crisis across the UK and beyond, has been announced for 2021. The Rural Housing Summit will use examples of on-the-ground work, policy and practical support for sustainable housing development in rural areas across the globe to showcase good practice,continue reading
World Habitat Day: Housing For All – A Better *Rural* Future
The theme for the United Nations World Habitat Day 2020 is Housing for All: A Better Urban Future. We wholeheartedly agree that housing is a human right and a catalyst for all other fundamental rights. We’ve just tweaked the theme a wee bit to argue that Housing for All as vital to a Better Ruralcontinue reading
Attention to local needs at the heart of social housing success
Calum Macaulay worked in housing associations and co-operatives for 37 years, latterly as Housing Manager and then Chief Executive for the largest housing association in the Highlands – Albyn Housing. He was also one of the founders of what is now Highland Homeless Trust and of TIGHRA – a tenant participation organisation for the Highlands, Islandscontinue reading
Fuel Poverty and Rural Homes
Marjan van de Weg is the senior data consultant with Changeworks, Scotland’s leading environmental charity delivering solutions for low carbon living. She recently worked with Citizens Advice Scotland on the ’Mind the Fuel Poverty Gap’ report, which explored how the eligibility for the Warm Home Discount scheme fits with the Scottish Government’s recently amended fuelcontinue reading
Cohousing as a solution to housing need in rural communities
Cohousing is an underexplored tool in tackling the rural housing crisis, and one which we believe more communities should be encouraged to investigate. With this in we have invited Chris Coates, founder member of Lancaster Cohousing and board member of the UK Cohousing Network, to talk through the practicalities of developing cohousing projects in acontinue reading
Braemar community-led housing project receives funding boost
We are delighted to announce that the community-led housing project we are working on with Braemar Community Limited is set to be the first in Scotland to benefit from loan funding from the CAF Venturesome Community-Led Housing Fund. The £120k unsecured loan will be used to finance pre-development work on a project which aims tocontinue reading
Report highlights need for better resourcing for ‘crucial’ work of rural housing facilitators
Rural Housing Scotland is named as one of a handful of key players in the provision of affordable rural housing in a new report commissioned by the Scottish Land Commission. However, the report’s authors note the impact of this “crucial” work is “constrained by time and resource”. The ‘Role of Land in Enabling New Housingcontinue reading
Construction of Rural Homes in a Post-Covid Era: Interview with Kenny MacLeod
Kenny MacLeod is a Director of MacLeod Construction – an Argyll-based construction firm and timber kit manufacturer with 45 years’ experience of building new homes across Argyll and beyond. In this interview we ask him about some of the challenges faced by rural developers and the approaches and solutions he believes are required to tacklecontinue reading