The local authority has pledged to invest £527 million in housing in Glasgow over a five-year period to tackle increasing pressures in the city.
Councillors have now approved the Strategic Housing Investment Plan (SHIP) that aims to respond to the city's rising population numbers and ageing population rates.
A total of 185 development projects will take place across the city with a particular focus on rented homes, accessiblity and increasing property size to accommodate larger families.
The building plan, which will run from 2024 to 2029, aims to accelerate regeneration in the city and boost Glasgow's economic growth.
READ MORE: Mother tells of losing everything due to partner's gambling addiction
Kenny McLean, City Convener for Housing at Glasgow City Council, said: “Glasgow’s Strategic Housing Investment Plan is very important for the city, paving the way to build 7500 new affordable homes and meet other key housing needs between 2024 and 2029.
"New affordable housing is key not only to the quality of life of the residents, but the standard of the environment in our communities and its contribution to Glasgow’s economic growth.”
Pressures on housing in Glasgow, where the population is younger and more diverse than other local authorities, are set to increase by around 2.4% by 2032 - 15,255 people - from the current 637,000 people and 302,000 households.
However, the modelling, based on National Records of Scotland Projections, does not take into account humanitarian programmes, recent migration trends or homelessness legislation.
Glasgow City Council receives the largest number of homeless presentations in Scotland disproportionate to the size of its population.
The city receives around 20% of all homeless presentations in Scotland, but its population is approximately 11% of Scotland.
As of August 2023, there were 700 homeless households living in emergency hotel/bed and breakfast accommodation in Glasgow.
The city also accommodates the highest level of asylum seekers and refugees in Scotland and Glasgow City Council is working with four RSLs to secure funding to bring 231 empty properties back into use for Ukrainian households.
The council said that a priority for new housing developments delivered through the SHIP is that 10% of all new homes in developments of 20 units and above will be wheelchair readily adaptable; and 60 new family-sized homes with three or more bedrooms are built each year.
Challenges remain in the delivery of affordable housing, not least the 56% rise in costs to do so since 2018, and the impact of high interest rates. The SHIP will also support adaptation work in homes to allow independent living.
It is expected that 80.7% of the new homes to be built through the SHIP funding will be social-rent housing, with 18.5% mid-market rent and 0.8% shared equity.
Glasgow has a high percentage of social or private rented homes - 55% of homes are rented compared to around 39% for Scotland as a whole.
READ MORE: The war on motorists wins when we obsess so over our cars
Among the city's registered social landlords (RSL), for every home let in 2021 there were on average 10 applicants on housing registers still waiting.
For larger sized homes of four or more bedrooms that rose to an average of 60 applicants on housing registers for every home let during 2021/22.
Glasgow’s SHIP was developed by Glasgow City Council in consultation with housing associations, private developers, the voluntary sector, Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership and other organisations. One of the main transformations detailed by the SHIP is in the Glasgow North area where building is taking place at Sighthill and Maryhill, as well as other priority housing regeneration areas at Port Dundas, Hamiltonhill, Cowlairs, Wyndford and Ruchill Hospital.
Plans include the building of 3191 new housing units, which are forecast to be developed in the period up to 2032.
There are more than 40 projects identified within the SHIP 2024/25 to 2028/29 for this area, and potential for delivering more than 700 new affordable homes over five years.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel