Investing in Modernisation - An Agenda for Scotland's Housing :4

Investing in Modernisation - An Agenda for Scotland's Housing

Chapter 1 The Housing Context Introduction 1.1 At the start of the twentieth century the majority of Scottish households rented a dwelling from a private landlord; by 1970, most were tenants of the local authority. Today, athe majority of Scottish households own their own home. These dramatic changes in housing tenure have been matched by equally marked changes in the type and condition of the stock and changes in the number, size and needs of households. This Chapter surveys briefly the developments which have brought us to where we are now, assesses the current housing situation in Scotland and highlights some of the more significant factors and trends that will need to be taken into account in determining future housing provision. It provides a backdrop to the consideration of proposals to revitalise Scotland's housing.
The Path to the Present: Changes in Housing Tenure and Type
1.2 The twentieth century has seen some remarkable changes in the pattern of housing in Scotland as housing markets have adapted to changing circumstances and elements, and as the views and actions of public authorities have altered and developed in response to new policies and the changing aspirations of the public. Each set of changes has had an impact on the housing choices available to households today and, indeed, the legacy of the nineteenth century can still be seen in the built environment of urban and rural Scotland.

The Pre- and Inter-War Years
1.3 The process of urbanisation and industrialisation in the nineteenth century and early part of the twentieth century changed the face of Scotland in many ways, not least in the way people were housed. In particular these forces led to the growth of one of the most distinctive features of urban Scotland - the tenement flat. Built of stone, the majority provided small homes for large families, with one or two rooms housing as many as ten people. Almost all of Scotland's tenements were built by private builders and rented from private landlords. This pattern of ownership was repeated across almost all forms of Scottish housing - in 1914 private landlords owned an estimated ninety out of every hundred dwellings.

1.4 By way of contrast, local authorities provided few houses over this period. Despite the cramped and unhealthy living conditions for many people in both urban and rural Scotland - in 1911 almost half of the population still lived in two rooms or less - municipal housing activity before the First World War remained limited. On the whole, municipal efforts concentrated on public health measures - the provision of water supplies and drainage and localised slum clearance - rather than direct housing provision. By 1913, Scottish municipalities were providing council housing to only about 1% of Scots. Around a fifth of Scotland's current urban housing stock and a third of rural stock was built before 1919.
Figure 1.1	The 19th Century tenement legacy, the Gorbals Glasgow c.1960.
	1.5 The failure of the private sector to satisfactorily meet housing needs was recognised during the early part of the twentieth century. At the same time there was a shift in attitudes towards the role of the State and its responsibility in future housing provision. This resulted in a significant increase in the size of the local authority housing stock in Scotland between the wars. Between 1919 and 1939 Scottish councils built approximately 230,000 dwellings, over twice as many as the private sector (see Figure 1.1). Yet the focus of council activity during this period changed in response to perceived national housing need. In the 1920s, council housing in Scotland was directed at meeting general needs by increasing the total size of the housing stock. Many of the homes built during this decade were semi-detached with generous gardens and they remain amongst the most attractive and sought after housing in the public sector. In the 1930s, however, the emphasis moved towards stock replacement, through slum clearance programmes or houses built to relieve overcrowding. Unfortunately, many local authority estates built during this period, though providing greatly improved housing, inherited the reputation and the social problems of the slum districts that they had replaced. Overall, it is estimated that some 15% of current stock date from these inter-war years.
Source: Scottish Office, Housing Return for Scotland (various volumes); Scottish Office, Scottish Housing Statistics (various years); Scottish Office, Statistical Bulletin (Housing Series) HSG/1997/3 and HSG/1998/7

The Post-War Period
1.6 After the Second World War the focus of local authority housing activity reverted to increasing the total size of the stock to meet the considerable housing needs resulting from a substantial growth in the number of newly formed households looking for a house of their own, the termination of new building during the war itself, and the loss of houses through war damage. In the following 25 years or so, public authorities _ local authorities, the Scottish Special Housing Association (SSHA) and the New Town Development Corporations (NTDC) - built over 650,000 homes in Scotland, over five times as many as the private sector (see Figure 1.1). Many of these houses were built with subsidies intended to meet general housing needs which enabled local authorities to exercise a degree of discretion about where and what they built. From 1957, however, central government began to exert a stronger control on public housebuilding programmes through a subsidy mechanism which was increasingly favourable to high density developments. It is during this phase that high rise flats and other non-traditional building forms came to dominate much of the Scottish urban landscape. Almost 600,000 dwellings built between 1945 and 1965 still survive to this day, accounting for almost a third of the total stock.

1.7 By the early 1970s, the various public sector building programmes had gone a long way to tackling the post war housing shortage. Such progress was not, however, without costs. In some parts of Scotland housing provision was dominated by the local authority with the result that the market for private sector housing was relatively limited. At the same time, central and local government was coming to the view that a change in direction was necessary and that new policies and initiatives were required. During the 1960s there had been mounting criticism of urban redevelopment programmes. As better quality housing was increasingly targeted for demolition they were seen more and more as damaging local communities and destroying jobs. The failure to co-ordinate slum clearance with re-building in some areas had also led to large scale urban blight, and there was a recognition that continuing losses of population through urban out-migration was creating new problems. As a result there were growing demands for the improvement of existing, older housing rather than its demolition and replacement.
	Post-war high rise flats, the Gorbals Glasgow
1.8 The growth of public sector housing in the inter- and post-war period was largely mirrored by a decline in the private rented sector. In 1946 the private rented sector still accounted for over 50% of Edinburgh's housing stock, but by 1971 only approximately 17% of households in Scotland as a whole were in the privately rented sector and by 1981 this had fallen to less than 10%.
1.9 It was towards the latter part of this period that owner-occupation began to emerge as an important part of the Scottish housing scene. Yet even by 1970 only just over 30% of Scots owned their own home. Between 1919 and 1970 home ownership levels in Scotland were significantly lower than in the rest of Britain, in part reflecting a preference for renting and in part because of lower average household incomes.

The Last Quarter Century and Recent Developments
1.10 The initial growth in home ownership may have been slow, but by the mid 1990s well over half of all dwellings in Scotland were in the owner-occupied sector. The rapid expansion in owner occupation in the past twenty years or so can be explained by a number of factors including the increase in real incomes and changing attitudes, the deregulation of the mortgage market and Government housing and taxation policies. The introduction of the Right to Buy for public sector tenants in 1981 has had a major influence on the increase in the level of owner-occupation over the past two decades. As elsewhere in the UK, the continuing availability of tax relief on mortgage interest has undoubtedly helped to make owner-occupation financially attractive. However, the growth in owner-occupation has also resulted from sales of formerly privately rented properties and by increasing levels of new private sector building - between 17,000 to 18,500 dwellings a year in the 1990s.
1.11 At the same time as owner-occupation was establishing itself as the dominant force in Scottish housing, a new category of owner and landlord was beginning to emerge. The 1964 Housing Act is usually taken as the starting point for the modern housing association movement in Britain, but it was not until the Housing Act of 1974 that it really took off in Scotland. This Act introduced a new funding mechanism for housing associations called Housing Association Grant (HAG) which was combined with a Housing Corporation loan. HAG made up the shortfall between the project costs and the projected income from "fair" rents and it was payable only to associations who were registered with and supervised by the Housing Corporation. By 1980 there were 53 registered housing associations in Scotland, almost all of which were based in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Between 1974 and 1980, these housing associations built approximately 5,500 new homes for let at "fair" rents as set by the Rent Officer. Given that the majority of their funding was in the form of central government grant, housing associations' activities followed government housing priorities quite closely. During the 1970s this meant that associations focused their attention on the rehabilitation of pre-1919 tenements, and the provision of housing for the elderly and those with special needs. This concern with rehabilitation of older neighbourhoods was particularly evident in Glasgow where new, community based housing associations, promoted by the Housing Corporation with the support of the local authority, carried out comprehensive improvements to much of the remaining tenement stock.

1.12 Housing association activity and the number of housing associations has continued to expand during the 1980s and 1990s. Many were specifically established to undertake renewal programmes in unpopular estates across urban Scotland. In addition, a new network of rural and island housing associations registered with Scottish Homes. During the 1990s it has been increasingly common for housing associations, including some specifically established for this purpose, to take over ownership of housing transferred from Scottish Homes and local authorities. 1.13 Scottish Homes was established in 1989, at arm's length from central government itself, as a new national housing agency to "make sure that the quality of housing and variety of options for the people of Scotland are substantially improved". Scottish Homes was formed through a merger of the SSHA and the Scottish arm of the Housing Corporation, although its powers and range of functions are far wider than either body.
Since its inception, Scottish Homes has played a major role in housing in Scotland particularly in relation to the promotion of housing associations, the encouragement of owner-occupation amongst households with relatively modest incomes and the development of mixed tenure communities. Scottish Homes and housing associations have "levered in" over �1.1 billion of private finance since 1989. Its role is considered in more detail in subsequent chapters.	Modern owner-occupied housing, Aberdeen

Pointers from the Past
1.14 This brief review of the historical context to housing in Scotland suggests that the following points need to be borne in mind when considering future housing policies: the pattern of tenure has changed dramatically over the century; in part driven by wider economic forces and in part the result of the policy priorities of the Government of the day; owner-occupation is now the experience of the majority of Scots; by contrast private renting is now relatively limited; as we move into the twenty -first century, there is still a significant proportion of the stock built before 1919. This is currently estimated at 21% of the total stock and most is to be found in the private sector; and, much of the local authority stock is also now relatively old and there are sharp differences in the condition and popularity of local authority housing in different localities.