We have a fantastic and dedicated Board of Directors – learn more about them in this new blog series! Prior to her retirement last year, Norma was a Team Leader in Planning and Policy for Housing and Communities in Perth and Kinross Council. Over the past thirty years, she has worked mainly in strategic planning incontinue reading
Guest blog Archives
Meet The Board – Alastair Cameron
We have a fantastic and dedicated Board of Directors – learn more about them in this new blog series! Alastair is the former Chief Executive of Scottish Churches Housing Action, which mobilises the churches in working towards a Scotland free of homelessness. He has been a board member of Rural Housing Scotland from its inception incontinue reading
Meet The Board – David Stewart
We have a fantastic and dedicated Board of Directors – learn more about them in this new blog series! David joined the Scottish Land Commission in April 2019 and his remit includes work on land assembly, placemaking, land value capture and affordable rural housing. He joined the commission from the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations where hecontinue reading
Sustainable Rural Housing for the Future | Sam Foster
Sam Foster is an architect working with Architype. His experience includes six years at Gaia Architects, nine years running his own practice and two years at Rural Housing Scotland as project manager for community-led affordable housing projects in rural Scotland – all of which focused on low-energy design using natural, non-toxic and low embodied carboncontinue reading
Scottish Housing Day: The Rural Energy Crisis – Q&A with Energy Advisor, Donnie MacKay
From food to heating, cost of living is already disproportionately high in rural and island areas. As energy prices continue to soar, the outlook for rural communities is extremely concerning. Last year, on Scottish Housing Day, we shared two blogs which explored the reasons that rural homes are often far less energy efficient than thosecontinue reading
Housing and Highland Hospitality
The housing crisis is having an increasingly worrying effect across sectors in rural Scotland. Good employment opportunities already exist in many remote and rural areas, particularly with the post-pandemic increase in ‘work from home’ opportunities, but this is of little value if there is nowhere for workers to live. A recent survey on the Islecontinue reading
Scottish Housing Day (Part 2) – The realities of trying to improve home energy efficiency in our remote rural and island communities
This year, Scottish Housing Day is focused on the role of housing in the climate emergency. We have released two blogs on this theme. You can read our first Scottish Housing Day blog here. Our homes are responsible for 13% of Scotland’s emissions which means, in order to meet our ambitious net-zero targets, we needcontinue reading
Why working to tackle the rural housing crisis matters to me: Interview with Kirsty Glover
Our newest team member and recent graduate, Kirsty Glover, tells us about her passion for rural issues which led to her dissertation comparing rural depopulation in northern Spain and the Scottish Highlands. As a resident of Applecross, Kirsty also shares her thoughts on what better rural housing would mean to communities like hers and explorescontinue 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