A new report from Homes for Scotland (HFS) has warned that Scotland’s housing emergency could develop into a ‘catastrophe’ without effective government intervention.
Following analysis of local authority published housing land audits, the research has found that housing completions could fall to as low as 5,000 per annum by 2031 as a direct result of failing planning policy. This compares with the 19,797 homes completed in 2024.
Furthermore, this figure does not include the impact of wider regulation which HFS said continues to make it increasingly difficult and more expensive to build the range of homes required to ensure social wellbeing and economic success.
The report highlights that there isn’t enough land coming through the planning system to maintain a delivery pipeline that comes close to meeting Scotland’s housing needs – a situation HFS attributes to the introduction of National Planning Framework 4 which has seen 60% of Local Development Plans (LDPs) become out of date.
On average, new LDPs aren’t due for publication until 2029. HFS added that, as delays persist, the more deliverable of previously allocated sites have been, or are currently, being built out. At the same time, sites which may be constrained or unviable remain in the system and are unable to be removed in favour of new ones.
Given that it takes around four years from submitting a planning application until delivery, HFS claims this means the number of new homes being built will continue on a downwards trajectory and that it could be 2033 before new homes start coming through again.
Kevin Murphy, HFS director of planning, said, “Let’s be clear, the housing emergency has been decades in the making. Whilst we have welcomed the principle of the recently announced More Homes Scotland agency, this won’t be fully operational until 2028/29. We just don’t have that time to lose.
“Frustratingly, this new report only confirms the specific concerns we have been expressing to ministers and officials since before NPF4 was introduced. However, rather than the Scottish Government addressing these and taking the necessary corrective action, we find ourselves with yet another consultation which describes ‘a living pipeline of land’ with planning permission being ‘in place for at least 164,000 homes’ which have not yet been built.
“As our research shows, this simply isn’t the case. Such narrative belies the wide-ranging, lengthy, complex and costly challenges that the home building sector has to face in delivering much-needed homes of all tenures.
“The truth is planning policy, particularly transition from NPF4 to LDPs, is exacerbating rather than addressing the fundamental problem which lies at the heart of the matter: the chronic undersupply of effective land on which to build homes. In the context of only 1.4% of Scotland’s land being in residential use, it is a shocking and untenable state of affairs that more than one in four Scottish households have been identified as being in some form of housing need.”
HFS has put forward suggestions, including the reinstatement of the presumption in favour of sustainable development to allow new sites to be built out earlier and aid the transition between the publication of NPF4 and new LDPs. Masterplan Consent Areas, which are being rolled out in Highland, also have the potential to be part of the solution.
Murphy added, “We continue to stand ready to work with the Scottish Government to implement effective, data-driven solutions and have demonstrated our commitment to this through the identification of specific barriers and the action required to overcome them. I sincerely hope ministers and officials ensure positive rhetoric translates into effective action before we see any more investment diverted elsewhere in the UK and lose any more of our SME home building base which is now at its lowest level in 20 years.”
