Garry Coutts – Blog – Urban Landlord Group meeting – 17 March 2026
We held the seventh meeting of the urban landlord group on 17 March 2024. This is one of the three standing groups of senior people from Registered Social Landlords we meet with regularly to discuss important and topical issues in social housing in Scotland. We meet with the groups to help us understand the challenges faced by those we regulate.
This was my first attendance at the Urban Landlord Group and I found the wide-ranging discussion to provide a fantastic insight to the array of challenges faced by social landlords, as well as highlighting the successes they have had and continue to achieve.
The Group first discussed building new homes and some of the difficulties they encounter. While the huge increases in the cost of building was to the fore, the Group members highlighted other factors that can prevent or slow the development of new homes. These included constrained capacity in the supply chain, limited resources in the planning system resulting in delays and a lack of foresight in planning decisions, difficulties in engaging with utility companies and especially Scottish Water. Most of the Group members viewed the proposed new national housing agency, More Homes Scotland, to be an opportunity to potentially help with a number of these challenges, but much would depend on what role and powers the agency is given and how these fit with the role of local authorities. All of the Group members identified the critical importance of the right financing for new build projects to ensure they are viable with rents tenants can afford.
The Group highlighted a continuing caution around adopting at scale clean heating systems to help achieve the Scottish Government’s ambitions on decarbonisation. This caution is because of higher costs of clean heating systems, challenges around tenant adoption and supply chain difficulties around installation and maintenance. Most landlords have adopted a fabric first approach. The Group discussed the challenges on connecting to heat networks with a lack of strategic clarity at local authority level and concerns around uncertainty on future costs for tenants.
The Group then touched on the quality of existing homes with members discussing that some, especially older homes or those in mixed tenure blocks, may be increasingly viewed as liabilities rather than as assets. This highlights the importance of effective asset management based on a good understanding of the condition and potential risks of all a landlord’s homes.
Group members flagged an appetite to discuss in more detail at the next meeting the expectations on RSLs around housing increased numbers of people who are experiencing homelessness.