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
News 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
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
Islands Revival
Stories of recovery from our island communities We were more than happy to lend our full backing to the James Hutton Institute and Community Development Lens applying to the SEFARI Responsive Opportunity Fund for their “Islands Revival” project. Through the work of our ‘Our Island Home’ development officer, we have seen first hand the effortscontinue reading
The Community Learning Eigg-change
Some images courtesy of @juradevelopment The value of Community Learning Exchanges was clear from the moment the Rural Renewal CLE in Mull was coming to an end. Every attendee asked whether it would be possible to organise further exchanges that would help strengthen the newly formed island connections. We are delighted to be able tocontinue reading
Rural Renewal Community Learning Exchange
Our Island Home were delighted to be able to bring together organisations and individuals from the islands of Arran, Eigg, Jura, Luing, Lismore and Mull on the 16th and 17th October 2018. Thanks to Scottish Community Alliance’s Community Learning Exchange programme, we were able to provide site visits to three community led organisations on the Islecontinue reading