Housing quality

A new housing settlement

Author / Creator: Common Weal

Media type: Policy Paper

Date published: 2020

There is so much wrong with our housing system, from needless homelessness to spiralling costs (which have shut a generation out of housing) to over-mortgaged homeowners struggling financially to the sheer environmental inefficiency of much of the housing we build to the failure to build homes how and where communities need rather than where a developer can make most money.


Get the future of energy right

Author / Creator: Common Weal

Media type: Video

Date published: 2020

Energy – electricity, heating and transport fuel – is crucial for the modern Scotland we live in. But it can also be one of our biggest threats if we don’t get them right. It can harm our environment and play a major role in causing the climate crisis.  ‘Energy inequality’ can harm the health of those who can’t afford to heat their homes. Scotland is one of the few countries in Europe which does not own its energy publicly and the only one that doesn’t  own its own National Grid. 

Video 1:35 minutes


21 For 21: The Climate Change Actions Scotland Needs Now

Author / Creator: Common Weal

Media type: Policy Paper

Date published:

21 Policies that would enable Scotland to meet our responsibilities as laid out by the 2021 IPCC Sixth Assessment Report


Alienating, insecure and unaffordable: Living in Scotland’s private rented sector

Author / Creator: Ben Wray

Media type: Assessment report

Date published: October 2017

Young people are  most affected by the growth of the private rental sector. It is insecure. They are more separated from the community than in social housing. The quality of the private rental sector housing is inferior in general.


The Rent Controls Scotland Needs

Author / Creator: Common Weal

Media type: Policy Paper

Date published:

Rent controls designed around a points-based system linked to the quality and amenities of a property and attached to the property rather than the lease would provide a just rental provision.


Housing 2040 Consultation Response

Author / Creator: Malcolm Fraser

Media type: consultation response

Date published:

A good home and community as a human right, is a font of wellbeing. It is not simply an outcome of wealth-creation. To deliver this covers a wide range of policy areas including:

  • Existing buildings, 
  • land and planning, 
  • regeneration, 
  • finance, 
  • leadership, 
  • diversification, 
  • technology and materials, and 
  • tax and wealth.


Good Houses For All

Author / Creator: Craig Dalzell

Media type: Policy Paper

Date published:

This is a model for building an unlimited number of houses for social rent on a zero-subsidy basis using the Scottish National Investment Bank.


Housing For A Better Nation

Author / Creator: Sarah Glynn

Media type: Policy Paper

Date published: August 2014

Good housing needs more than good housing policy. Housing policy needs to be part of wider social changes towards a more equal, community-centred, environmentally sustainable society.