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
Rural Housing Scotland Archives
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
Fragile areas need Big Government | Alasdair Stephen
Derek Logie’s recent blog – Post COVID rural Scotland needs a post war style ‘blood transfusion’ – picked up on points made by architect Alasdair Stephen in a piece in the West Highland Free Press in 2016 and speech Alasdair made to the Rural Housing Scotland conference in 2017. With Alasdair’s permission the WHFP piececontinue reading
Post-COVID rural Scotland needs a post-war style ‘blood transfusion’
“The Highlands have been subject to steady de-population for the last half-century and have been treated like a dying patient to whom people have been handing out hot gruel, etc., with the patient merely grumbling and growling as it went into a decline… The one urgent thing is to stop any further migration. In additioncontinue reading
RHS helps Tarland community explore options for affordable housing
We’re delighted to be working with Tarland Development Group (TDG) on a12-month project aimed at taking steps towards developing new, affordable housing in the Aberdeenshire village. Like many parts of rural Scotland, Tarland has suffered from the twin challenges of under-investment in affordable housing and increasing levels of commuting to towns and cities. This hascontinue reading
Government reports suburban homes as affordable rural housing
This is Burdiehouse on the outskirts of Edinburgh. Under the Scottish Government’s Affordable Housing Supply Programme statistics, the 15 affordable homes built here in 2018/19 are classed as ‘accessible rural’, alongside houses built in towns such as Elgin, Inverurie and Troon. (See the full list of ‘accessible rural’ locations identified in the 2018/19 report). Therecontinue reading
2020 conference explores a vision for rural Scotland
What happens if we stop managing decline in our rural areas and instead start tacking the structural obstacles that stand in the way of building thriving local communities? This is the question journalist and campaigner Lesley Riddoch will be asking in the opening session of Rural Housing Scotland’s annual conference in Birnam on 28th February.continue reading
A Wee Bit of Site TLC
Afternoon All, Whilst I’m not under 3ft of snow like in other areas, it is still pretty darned cold so what better way to warm the cockles than getting stuck into this website administering show! Having never tried this before, it’s very much a case of learn as you go and so there *might* becontinue reading
Building Rural Futures – RHS Conference 2018
23rd February was the date for our annual conference. The theme this year was Building Rural Futures. As per usual, the conference was held in Birnam (with the pre-conference evening reception being held at Dunkeld House Hotel). We were delighted to welcome around 100 delegates and speakers to discuss various subjects ranging from Island Proofingcontinue reading