ROOF Blog

Meanwhile, Scotland would be 100 per cent renewable in the 20 years, according to a report The power of Scotland renewed. Renewable energy could meet between 60 and 143 per cent of Scotland’s annual electricity demand by 2030 by investing in grid upgrades, interconnections and electricity storage, the report says.

The number of council and housing association homes for rent is at its lowest in 50 years, a Shelter Scotland report has found. Building pressure warns of a ‘growing chasm between the number of homes needed and the number available’. It estimated there were 142,000 households on the waiting list for council homes, and said the right-to-buy scheme was partly to blame for the shortage as more than 135,000 homes had been sold under the scheme in the previous decade.

In Scotland, the government has promised to pour £9 million into a new social housing pot. Communities minister Alex Neil announced the payout at a construction conference in Edinburgh, saying that 17 Scottish local authorities will benefit, and more than 1,300 new council homes will be built this year as a result.

Stirling council has become the first local authority in Scotland to ban the practice of evicting tenants who fall behind on their rent payments. Latest figures show the authority had evicted 23 such tenants in 2008, in moves the councillors called ‘draconian’. Shelter Scotland said it was delighted with the move and called on other councils to follow Stirling’s lead, stating that more than 97 per cent of the 3,577 evictions by councils and housing associations in 2007 and 2008 were for tenants who had fallen into arrears.

Nearly one in four people have cancelled their home insurance in a bid to save money during the recession research from the Association of British Insurers found. Around 22 per cent said they had either cancelled or not renewed their home contents cover in the past 12 months, and a further 17 per cent no longer have any cover. People living in Scotland are the most likely to cancel or not renew their cover.

The Scottish law on homelessness that makes housing an enforceable right should be adopted across the UK, a United Nations’ report on social issues has said. The report said it is troubled by Britain’s ‘chronic shortage of housing, in particular social housing for the most disadvantaged and marginalised individuals, [such as those] with disabilities’, and singled out the Homelessness Scotland Act 2003 as ‘best practice’.

In Scotland, house sales have been helped by the introduction of home information packs (hips), the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has found. It claims the reports which have been a requirement since December have tempted buyers back into the market as buyers and sellers have been getting used to using them as part of the selling process.

Progress in tacking child poverty in Scotland has stalled, with more than one in five children living in poverty. A Joseph Rowntree Foundation report found there had been no improvement in the number of children living in poverty in the past five years, despite commitment to halve poverty levels by 2010 and eradicate it entirely by 2010. The report wants the Scottish government to do more to tackle the issue including improving employment opportunities for parents, introducing a living wage, and improving access to affordable quality childcare. It is estimated that 21 per cent of Scottish children live in poverty.

The number of homes completed in Scotland has fallen 23 per cent in the final quarter of last year and 13 per cent for the whole of 2008. The number of new homes started in the fourth quarter of the year was 48 per cent down on the same quarter in 2007 and overall down 19 per cent from 2007 to 2008. However, there was a big increase in the number of houses for rent or low cost home ownership, with 29 per cent more homes built than in 2007, and the highest level in eight years.

England is receiving a disproportionately high number of immigrants to the UK a cross party group of MPs has found. Between 1991 and 2007, 2.15 million immigrants arrived in England, compared to 105,000 in Scotland, 56,000 for Wales and 27,000 to Northern Ireland. England’s population could increase by nearly 10 million people in the next 20 years, of which seven million will be immigrants.