RUTH Davidson has unveiled plans to tackle Scotland’s housing crisis by building thousands of new council properties – three decades after Margaret Thatcher sounded the death knell for social housing.
The Scottish Conservative leader has been accused of “the height of hypocrisy” for asking the Scottish Government to fix a problem that a housing charity insists the Tories helped to create.
Shelter Scotland said legislation giving council tenants the right to buy their homes, introduced by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, is “part of the reason we have a shortage of social housing on which many low income households depend”.
In a speech in Edinburgh today, Ms Davidson will call on the Scottish Government to hand councils the power to build the next generation of new towns, similar to the post-war building boom that spawned settlements such as East Kilbride, Glenrothes, Cumbernauld, Livingston and Irvine.
In advance extracts of her speech, Ms Davidson said: “The last time we had a housing crisis on this scale was in the aftermath of the Second World War.
“Back then, politicians had the courage to act in order to get building. We now need to find the same courage to address today’s needs.”
Scottish Greens co-convener Patrick Harvie MSP mocked the Tory leader’s plan insisting: “It’s the height of hypocrisy for the Tories to claim to care about Scotland’s housing crisis given their own disastrous right-to-buy policy obliterated our social housing stock and has left us with a legacy of people unable to afford to buy a home and stuck in increasingly expensive private rented accommodation.”
A Labour spokeswoman said Ms Davidson “forgets to mention it was a radical Labour government” that fixed the post-war housing crisis.
The Conservative leader urged developers to “learn from the mistakes” of the past, which led to many of the new towns being branded crime-ridden carbuncles.
She cited new villages like Chapelton outside Aberdeen, where landowners, developers and the council came together to design a new community as the way forward.
And she wants “a clear plan” to ensure Scotland builds 25,000 homes a year of all varieties – including new council housing.
She called on the Scottish Government to establish a national Housing 
Infrastructure Agency and create a new cabinet post for housing and infrastructure.
The agency would deliver the infrastructure around the new towns, such as roads and public services, to ensure they do not strain the existing services.
She said the agency should not take planning control away from councils, but offer “strategic direction that allows local communities to press ahead”.
Ms Davidson was inspired by a report by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) which said up to eight new communities are required across Scotland.
The RICS report welcomed the Scottish Government’s decision to end the right-to-buy scheme, but recognised “that past take up has been an important element in social mobility for many Scots in the bottom half of the income distribution”.
Graeme Brown, director of Shelter Scotland, said: “It’s really positive to see the Scottish Conservatives focusing on housing – particularly since right-to-buy legislation is part of the reason we have a shortage of social housing on which many low income households depend.”
He backed the proposal to create a cabinet secretary for housing and a new infrastructure agency, but said the focus should be on building homes which remain affordable rather feeding another cycle of boom and bust.
Labour’s housing spokeswoman, Pauline McNeill, said: “Ruth Davidson talks about the worst housing crisis since World War Two, but forgets to mention it was a radical Labour government that fixed it.” She said Labour has been calling for housing to be treated as a national infrastructure project for years.
Communities Secretary Angela Constance said: “We have delivered over 68,000 affordable homes since 2007, reintroduced council housing and have supported more than 23,000 people into home ownership. By ending the right to buy we have increased the supply of affordable homes.”