Andy Mallice: Vision needed to plug gap in social housing
Thirty years ago, Scotland had one of the highest proportions of citizens in social rented housing in the world. But since the right to buy (RTB) was introduced by Margaret Thatcher in 1980, the sector has lost about 500,000 homes – about half the total stock in 1979.
This has had an inevitable knock-on effect on waiting lists, with Shelter Scotland estimating that there are 160,000 households waiting for a council or housing association home.
It's the supply side that's wanting. To help stimulate this, the Scottish Government has ended RTB for new tenancies, stemming the sale of existing homes and encouraging new ones to be built.