Author: Planning Democracy

RAMPS was born out of the irritation of constantly checking for changes to planning applications. A couple of proactive community councillors from Midlothian, and an IT specialist, decided they were fed up with doing this and set up the means to capture data from their Planning Portal every evening.  This allowed changes to planning applications to be spotted easily.

They came to us and showed us what they had done and we saw the potential in it. We have since collaborated with them to help develop the resource, which they called RAMPS.

RAMPS now covers almost all Local Authorities in Scotland and has features that we think will be super helpful for a wide range of people from individuals to community councillors or researchers.

A common complaint we hear from many community councillors is the lack of time to keep abreast of applications, especially in areas of heavy development pressure, where community councils are inundated with applications, often too many to keep tracking effectively.

Other people say that they have difficulty in keeping up to date with major or long standing planning applications. Some applications go on for such a long time that it becomes tedious to keep checking what changes, if any, are being made every week, as in some cases nothing happens for months.

In situations like these, there is no guarantee that you’ll spot a new document and its quite likely that you will miss a change made to a document already on the planning portal.

Another regular frustration is that people say they knew nothing about an application because they live beyond the area where local authorities are required to notify them (which isn’t a very big boundary). Community councils receive a weekly planning list, but this means one person has to trawl through a long list of applications to find out the ones relevant to their area. This is all precious time that can be better used.

And, of course, other people may want to know about applications in other areas that they feel connected to or have some involvement in, but have no means of finding out other than checking the relevant Planning Portals every week.

Link to RAMPS here.

RAMPS addresses all these issues, here is a summary of what it does.

Easy to Read

RAMPS compiles all the data for an application onto one page in an easy to read manner.

Quickly see what’s changed in a Local Authority area

You can select an area, any combination of wards and community councils in a Local Authority, and search for changes in that area between two dates.  The report shows new applications and changes to existing applications.

Quickly see if there are any changes for a specific application

Just like ‘area’ changes, you can search for an application, and see what’s changed in that application between two dates selected.

Be able to see the history of application changes

On a Local Authority Planning Portal, you only see the status of planning applications as they are at the current time, but RAMPS allows you to see changes made during the application’s lifetime, which may throw up important issues.

Be notified of changes to applications

You can ask to be notified of any changes made to specific applications.

You can make it even easier by signing up for a RAMPS account.  You can then ask to receive alerts via email notifications to let you know when a change has been made.

Be notified about new applications in your selected areas

You can ask to be notified by email about any new planning applications in any area that you specify.

For info:

Unfortunately, East Lothian and West Dunbartonshire are not currently available in RAMPS.  It is hoped that these may be included in the future.

Access RAMPS here.

Author: David Ross, The Herald

Obituary of Simon Fraser    Born: April 28, 1955;    Died: January 25, 2016

SIMON Fraser, who has died on Lewis aged 60 after a long illness, was a solicitor and one of the most important figures in the land reform movement. Relatively few in Scotland would have known of him or his immense contribution to the communities who sought to control their own land, but without his navigation of the deals, very few of those who now own more than 500,000 acres of Scotland, home to 25,000 people, would have succeeded.

Mr Fraser’s great friend Dr Michael Foxley, former leader of the Highland Council, is clear that without Simon’s professionalism and tactical wit, little progress would have been made on land reform.

Perhaps ironically, it was a Tory government that led to his direct involvement. In 1989, Russell Sanderson, a Scottish Office minister in Margaret Thatcher’s government, took up the suggestion from the Scottish Crofters Union (SCU) that government-owned crofting estates be given to their tenants. In 1989 Lord Sanderson announced piloting of the idea on the Skye and Raasay estates.

In the end, the crofters there were content to remain tenants of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland. But the SCU had commissioned rural development charity the Arkleton Trust to report on the legal and practical implications for the crofters.

Simon Fraser was one of two lawyers involved and he developed a model of a community trust as a company limited by guarantee, which would work for local people seeking to buy their land.

Just a few years later in 1992, 100 tenant crofters in Assynt called on his expertise. They had just learnt that the 21,000-acre North Lochinver estate was being broken up and that they could be dealing with seven different landlords. In February 1993, against all the odds, they finally took control, clear they could not have done it without Simon Fraser’s guidance and negotiating skills.

Mr Fraser would recall that the stakes were higher on Eigg, where so many residents did not enjoy crofters’ security of tenure. If things went wrong they could be evicted.

The German artist Maruma had bought the island from Keith Schellenberg for £1.6m, only to take out loans immediately against it at punitive rates. Eigg was a pawn in a game of international land speculation.

Yet when it came back on the market, the Heritage Lottery Fund refused to assist the buyout if the local people were to control the island. The islanders were not trusted.

To get round that, Simon Fraser came up with the Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust with a membership of the island residents’ association, the Scottish Wildlife Trust and the Highland Council. But a massive anonymous donation meant lottery funding was not needed for the purchase.

They took ownership in June 1997, and the remarkable transformation of the island, after years of decline and decay, began with Mr Fraser as trust chair for the first seven years.

He loved Eigg, and on buyout day he spoke of what it represented to him: ”It is a triumph for all that is good in humanity and certainly one in the eye for everything that is mean-spirited and self-seeking.” His many friends would describe Mr Fraser’s own sense of commitment in similar vein.

Knoydart, Bhaltos, Abriachan, Fernaig, Kylesku, Gigha, North Harris and other communities were to follow with his guidance. It meant a great deal of travel and work for him. He did not get rich out of it.

“I don’t think he even sent us a bill, despite having done so much for us,” Maggie Fyffe, the secretary of the Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust observed.

He also spotted early a loophole in Holyrood’s 2003 land reform act, whereby landowners could circumvent the impact on their assets of a community buyout, by arranging long leases with companies, established or newly created for the purpose. This ‘interposed leases’ loophole was subsequently closed by legislation, in no little part because of lobbying by Mr Fraser.

He served as chairman of Scottish Natural Heritage’s North Area Board, underlining his unique position as someone who was trusted alike by crofters, environmentalists and the landowners for whom he acted as factor.

A Gaelic speaker, he was immersed in the human heritage of Lewis and the wider Gàidhealtachd. His beloved Molingonis retreat in North Harris was a place of hospitality and adventure for his extended family and friends.

Born in Glasgow, the family moved to Howwood in Renfrewshire when his father worked in the zoology department at Glasgow University. They also lived in Appin and North Connel in Argyll when Simon attended Oban High School.

He was in his mid-teens when the family moved to Stornoway where his father taught biology at the Nicolson Institute. They built a house on a croft at Breasclete on the west side of Lewis. His father served with the Crofters Commission.

Mr Fraser went to Aberdeen University and studied Celtic studies and Scottish history. Afterwards, he completed his legal apprenticeship with Anderson MacArthur in Stornoway, becoming a partner in the firm.

His wife Ann recently retired as a district nurse and midwife. He is survived by Ann and his sons Alasdair and Simon, and daughters Anna and Cara.

Author: LGIU

The number of independent councillors in England and Scotland is on the increase. Elections during the past decade have seen more councillors without an affiliation to a mainstream party elected to local authorities, while others have switched from a major party to sit as independents.

Independence in the council chamber is far from a new phenomenon. In the mid-seventies 20% of councillors in England were categorised as independents. Their number declined over the decades, before rising again as voters became tired of mainstream politics.

In 2019, with political attention focussed on Brexit, independents made more than 650 gains at elections in England and Wales. That trend has continued, though some independents lost seats on unitary councils in 2023.

According to the independent group at the Local Government Association, they now make up 17% of all councillors in England and Wales (up from 9.7% in 1997). The group has just over 2,000 independent members (including councillors from resident associations), as well as encompassing Greens, Plaid Cymru and smaller parties:

“This has been increasing over the last year through by-elections and councillors leaving other parties to become independent,” says group leader Abigail Gallop.

Some councils are led by independents, usually in coalition with other parties, while independents also play roles in the administration of other local authorities. Councils run by independent groups include Central Bedfordshire, Epsom and Ewell, and Havering, where the residents’ association governs with Labour [see below].

In Scotland, following elections in May 2022, LGIU calculated that 152 out of 1,227 councillors were independent – equivalent to 12%. In Orkney, Shetland Island and Western Isles councils, independents control the councils, with just a handful of councillors from mainstream parties.

Why are so many councillors independent?

Disaffection with party politics ebbs and flows, but in England, at least, it peaked about four years ago. With parliament bogged down by Brexit, voters became more dissatisfied with larger parties (and their leaders) and started looking for somewhere else to turn.

Residents’ associations, however, have fielded candidates at council elections for years. In addition, people sometimes opt to stand as independents over single issues, such as planning disputes.

In recent elections, some Conservative councillors have distanced themselves from the national party, with a few leaving the party altogether. They include Johnnie Wells, mayor of St Ives, who quit the Conservative Party last September, saying it had become “a hindrance”.

In November, a flurry of Labour councillors resigned over the failure of Keir Starmer to support a ceasefire in Gaza. They included 11 councillors in Burnley, who now sit as independents and control the council in coalition with other parties.

Other councillors leave mainstream parties due to local disputes, sometimes falling out with party colleagues.

How to be an independent?

With the number of independent councillors in England and Scotland growing, what is the best advice for those tempted to become, and hopefully remain, a councillor without any party affiliation?

Getting elected

Unless you are already a councillor for a recognised political party, you need to get elected to a local authority. Even if you declare independence between elections, it won’t be long before you need to seek the electorate’s backing again – without wearing the same rosette that adorned your jacket last time around.

It’s good to know that, according to a study carried out in 2022 for the LGA, about half of electors would consider voting for an independent. But that is only the start. It helps if you have a history of activism in the community but, unless you are a member of an official residents’ association, candidates without a political affiliation must meet challenges and costs normally covered by parties.

Friends and family make extremely useful bedfellows when it comes to knocking on doors, says Adam Paynter, who left the LibDems in 2020 to sit as an independent on Cornwall Council. There are also bills to pay, not least for election leaflets, the cost of which can easily run into hundreds of pounds. “It’s not cheap if you want to run a proper campaign,” says Cllr Paynter.

Georgina Hill was elected as an independent county councillor in Northumberland in 2017, and re-elected four years later. She previously sat as a Conservative on Berwick-upon-Tweed Town Council but left the party in 2015. Winning by 60 votes in 2017 was exhilarating, she says. In 2021, people told her she would most likely sail home, but she still spent about £800 on leaflets. Her supporters were right, with Cllr Hill gaining 75% of votes the second time around. “At the back of your mind, you want to get a bigger majority,” she says.

As an independent, it can sometimes be difficult to explain exactly what you stand for, says David MacDonald, an independent in East Renfrewshire. “Many voters don’t have a clue what various independents stand for and, therefore, you must work a lot harder to get one’s message across,” he says.

Exercising power

To be an effective independent, it is important to find like-minded people who, while they may not agree with you on everything, also sit as independents. By joining together as a group, you can influence local authority decisions more, not least by taking up seats on a committee or scrutiny panel.

Joining an independent group allows you to discuss issues ahead of meetings, even if you end up voting in different ways. “Being part of a group means you can ask other people questions,” says Geva Blackett, a councillor in Aberdeenshire who left the Scottish National Party to go independent in 2021. Here again, it almost certainly helps if your first taste of council politics is not as an independent. “When you become a councillor, it’s huge,” says Cllr Blackett. “You are dealing with so many different things that you need a group to hold your hand.”

In Northumberland, Georgina Hill is part of a small group of eight independents. The main thing they have in common, she says, is they oppose the controlling Conservative administration. Being part of the group means Cllr Hill qualifies for places on two committees and two working groups. However, it is not unusual for independents to vote in different ways. “We don’t really meet that often. We tend to have WhatsApp chats,” she says.

In Runnymede, a district council in Surrey, resident association members have gone from being virtually the only opposition to forming a more multi-party opposition with Green, LibDem and Labour members. A smaller group of independents votes with the controlling Conservative group.

All changed in 2019 when the Conservative Party lost overall control. Opposition councillors now have an agreed agenda and meet prior to meetings, even if they don’t always vote together. “If we put up a really good argument then we have a chance of winning,” says Linda Gillham, who was first elected as an independent 23 years ago and now leads Runnymede Independent Residents Group. “There is a feeling that we can sway opinion and make a difference.”

Keeping up a profile

Retaining a reasonably high profile is especially critical for independent councillors. “Being an independent is like being a one-man band,” says Kevin Etheridge, who has been an independent councillor in Caerphilly for most of the last 20 years.

For Cllr Etheridge, the most important thing is visibility and being well-regarded in the community. He can generally be found in cafés in Blackwood up to four mornings per week and replies to every query with a hand-written letter. He aims to have at least two letters in local papers each week and fires off regular press releases based on answers to questions he asks at council meetings. “You should always concentrate on the ward,” he says. “Never personalise issues against other councillors. Always be constructive and attack the policy.”

Cllr Etheridge is less keen on social media. “I prefer knocking on doors and holding surgeries where you meet people face to face,” he says.

Talking to journalists (especially local democracy reporters) generally works to the advantage of independent councillors, depending on what you say. But there may be opportunities to grab the limelight in other ways.

Last year, Geva Blackett appeared on the TV programme Master Chef, saying she wanted to step out of her comfort zone and inspire young people to become chefs. She did not last long. “I made one pancake and left,” she recalls.

In any case, Cllr Blackett believes she did not require TV exposure, having won re-election in 2022 due to her long-standing reputation and work as a councillor. “I’m pretty bloody minded and opinionated,” she says.

Getting on with other councillors

As a member of your council’s independent group, you will probably be allowed to vote however you wish without a party whip being brandished in your direction. Conversely, independence also attracts like minds, meaning that people who once opposed one another in the council chamber suddenly find that they agree on most issues.

In Cornwall, the independent group includes ex-Conservative, Labour and LibDem councillors who, says Adam Paynter, generally get on well in spite of contrasting political backgrounds. “We laugh that the independent group votes together more than other political groups!” he adds.

Allied to this, and depending on electoral arithmetic, you may be asked to join, or at least vote with, one of the major parties. During the mid-2000s, Kevin Etheridge turned down the offer of a cabinet post made by Plaid Cymru, which was just short of a clear majority in Caerphilly. “My principles and integrity would not allow me [to be a cabinet member]. I’m a free spirit,” he says.

In Southend-on-Sea, independents support the minority Conservative administration on most issues. “They can’t survive without us,” explains Ron Woodley, who was elected 17 years ago and now sits under the ‘Residents First’ label. Seven years ago, Cllr Woodley was briefly council leader when independents ran the council with LibDem support. But he would prefer to remain outside party politics. “I cannot be told what to do,” he says.

Thinking and behaving independently

Going independent is normally a sign that, while you may agree with some people on some issues, there are few that you agree with on everything. Geva Blackett parted ways with the SNP in 2021, mainly because she was tired of being told what to say. “I’m capable of making up my own mind,” she says.

Though independent, Georgina Hill believes the party system facilitates democracy, providing controlling administrations with a mandate. Her independence, however, gives her more opportunity to support decisions that directly benefit her residents – regardless of who proposes them. This includes supporting the controlling group’s budget when it provides additional money for Berwick-upon-Tweed. “My philosophy does not allow me to be pigeon holed under a political umbrella,” she says.

Independent status affords councillors the ability to speak freely on issues they are passionate about without fear of being muted or given a pre-arranged script, says David MacDonald in East Renfrewshire. The level of freedom normally depends on whether independents play any part in the administration, including backing other groups on a ‘confidence and supply’ basis. “I have the unique and very privileged ability to be a clarion voice for the people that I represent,” he adds.

But beware: independence can equate to a heftier workload. In Southend-on-Sea, Ron Woodley believes he and other independents generally work harder to show voters they are working on their behalf. “I’m there for the ward and I’m at their beck and call,” he says. “People need to be happy that an independent councillor is looking after them.”

But being independent is also a privilege, says Linda Gillham. “I can sit through a debate, take into account what my residents want, and then make up my own mind without referring to a party,” she explains.

Power to the residents

Councillors who stand on behalf of residents’ associations represent a particular form of independent. While not affiliated with a major party, they normally sit as a group and, depending on local circumstances may behave in a similar way to a party.

In May 2022, Havering Residents Association took control of Havering Council after decades of opposition. It runs the London borough with the support of Labour, after falling short of winning a majority of seats.

“It’s a good relationship,” says council leader Ray Morgon. “We’re pretty much on the same page with Labour on most things. You’re mostly dealing with day to day operational things, so there are not huge differences or political choices.”

Traditionally, residents association members made up the second largest group in Havering, behind the Conservatives. Cllr Morgon says he is trying to take the toxicity out of local politics by, for example, inviting all councillors to suggest where money should be spent on potholes.

He also tries to be “open, honest and transparent” with residents over the council’s perilous financial situation. “Opposition is a fairly hard place to be. Whatever you put forward, you are never going to change anything,” he says. “Opportunities are limited due to the financial situation, but we’ve made some changes. We’re improving things.”

Orkney: leaving party politics behind

All but two of Orkney Island Council’s 21 councillors are independent, and it is unusual for the two Greens to toe any party line, says deputy leader Heather Woodbridge.

Cllr Woodbridge was elected as an independent in 2020 and quickly saw the value of councillors thinking and voting independently. “We work together as a team, trying to do the best for the people of Orkney,” she says. Opinions change, and other councillors do not always vote how you expect them to, she adds. “With a party system, you know how votes are going to go.”

But independence is valued and respected in an island community where people are more likely to be on first-name terms with elected representatives. “It’s like a coalition of 21 different parties,” says Cllr Woodbridge.

Other island councils, such as Shetland and Western Isles, operate along similar lines with little recourse to party politics. This is partly down to the island culture, she suggests, drawing on the Nordic tradition of egalitarianism. “Very small populations have to get along,” she says.

Author: The Guardian Opinion

In an intriguing study about to be published, the Dutch political philosopher Ingrid Robeyns poses a question that very rarely gets asked in mainstream politics. When it comes to the personal income and assets of the super-rich, how much is too much? The answer, she suggests in Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth, should be anything above €10m. At that point, taxation should intervene, redeploying the surplus for the common good.

Ms Robeyns is not naive. She thinks of her €10m figure as a guiding ideal to be striven for, but one that is unlikely ever to become a reality given the current way of the world. Quite. Nevertheless, her provocative intervention is valuable, because it draws attention to a curious disjunction: as the wealthy have got steadily richer in recent times, soaking up the benefits of free capital movement, share price surges and rising asset values, political talk about wealth taxes has diminished to a barely audible murmur.

In pre-election Britain, the Labour party has flatly refused to contemplate “mansion” taxes on property, an increase to capital gains tax, or higher top rates of income tax. Across the rest of Europe, there has been a similar reluctance to address an asset wealth boom comprehensively analysed in Thomas Piketty’s influential work, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Meanwhile, cash-strapped governments – and the European Union as a collective entity – struggle to find resources to deal with colossal challenges relating to the green transition and reviving moribund economies.

This ugly combination of undertaxed private wealth and public austerity not only gets in the way of necessary and broad-based economic renewal. It is an active source of social divisions, resentment and corrosive conspiracy theories – to an extent that is endangering the health of democracies. This should hardly come as a revelation. Writing in the 4th century BC, Plato prescribed that in the interests of political stability, richer citizens should have no more than four times the property of the poorest. In our own time, the far right is successfully piggy-backing on eroding faith in politics to prosecute its own authoritarian agenda.

Ms Robeyns is not alone in sounding the alarm. In another new book, the Labour MP and former Treasury minister Liam Byrne makes similar points about our age’s normalisation of an “absurd affluence”. Last week, a report published by Oxfam found that, while the wages of more than 800 million workers have failed to keep pace with inflation, the wealth of billionaires has grown three times as fast since 2020. The damning statistics are all out there. But still the sun never seems to set on the vacuous trickle-down theory of economics first popularised by Ronald Reagan.

The prospect of any version of “limitarianism” finding its way into a manifesto is therefore remote. But it is past time for social democratic parties, in particular, to show less deference towards the interests of the very wealthy in ever more unequal societies. Backed by Mr Piketty among others, two social democrat MEPs have launched a citizens’ petition calling for a European wealth tax to help finance the green transition. A million signatures would mean the European Commission had to listen. But when it comes to questions of “how much is too much?”, it should not be left to individual citizens to force the pace.

Author: Chris Clements, Social affairs correspondent, BBC Scotland

It was set up to face down the bulldozers of the old Glasgow Corporation – and became a blueprint for community ownership in Scotland.

But the famed Reidvale Housing Association looks set to be taken out of local hands.

After nearly 50 years of community stewardship in the city’s east end, it is likely to transfer its stock to a nationwide housing group.

Its governing body said an uncertain financial future means it has no choice but to hand over control to Places for People Scotland.

The plan was narrowly backed by a tenants’ vote. Reidvale’s shareholders will now meet on Monday to decide its future.

But amid claims of “dirty tactics”, local campaigners backed by MSPs seek to scupper the deal.

“Before the housing association came on the scene it was pretty dire,” said Denise Dempsey.

When she met with BBC Scotland News, she was handing out leaflets urging neighbours to vote against the proposed transfer.

She continued: “Even still to this day, people still know you from being a wee girl here.

“This was home for us.”

Denise, 54, lived on the neighbourhood’s Bellfield Street when Reidvale Housing Association was established.

Her family lived in the surrounding streets but she had to leave her home as a child when her block was condemned by local authorities.

It was part of a city-wide project in the 1970s to modernise housing and get rid of crumbling tenement blocks linked to poverty.

She returned to the area as a Reidvale tenant 30 years ago and still has family in the neighbourhood.

She said: “The whole thing was a foregone conclusion from the minute Places For People put their motif on the Reidvale website.

“They promise a rent freeze but when that finishes, what will rents go up to?

“I’ll be devastated. The whole heart of this community will be ripped out.”

‘We decided to put up the fight’

Reidvale Housing Association was born out of a battle to protect homes from demolition.

The city authorities planned to tear down tenements in the Dennistoun neighbourhood and move families to new homes in the growing schemes on the outskirts of Glasgow.

A group of residents – led by John Butterly and dubbed the ‘Bathgate Street Mafia’ – banded together to fight the proposals.

“John went absolutely mental and said, ‘In your dreams, not going to happen,'” said Irene McInnes, 75.

“It was either do something or the place was getting demolished.

“So we decided to put up the fight.”

The first committee met in 1972 and Reidvale became one of Scotland’s first community-owned housing associations three years later.

Irene was an owner-occupier but became heavily involved in the establishment of the association.

She went on to run groups for local children and served on the management committee for three decades.

She said: “At the beginning, I went round chapping doors asking people to sell their house to us.

“Asking that is quite a big thing. It was either that or the community was going to flattened.”

Tenements were protected after Reidvale Housing Association was established

That battle against demolition was remembered in a BBC documentary a decade ago.

Most of the tenement blocks were saved John Butterly was awarded an MBE in 1984 for his work. He died in 2001.

Nearly 900 homes are owned by Reidvale Housing Association.

Last year, the average weekly rent for a three-apartment flat was nearly 13% below the Scottish average.

However, in recent years, questions have been raised about its governance and its long-term financial sustainability.

Irene told BBC Scotland News that the committee had struggled to attract new members but had nearly £3m in reserves after paying off its debt.

In 2020, the Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) warned of “very serious weaknesses in the organisation’s governance, financial management and condition of the homes it provides for tenants”.

The watchdog said: “Following an independent review, the management committee of Reidvale decided that the best way for it to address these serious weaknesses was to transfer its homes to another Registered Social Landlord.”

Meanwhile, Reidvale told residents last month that its finances were “not viable” or “adequate to maintain a functioning, ongoing business that can meet its governance and regulatory requirements”.

Rent freeze promised

A new management team was installed in 2021.

After consultation, Places for People Scotland was chosen as a candidate in a potential transfer.

The Edinburgh-based organisation runs more than 7,700 homes. It is part of the larger Places for People Ltd, a Manchester-based association that owns more than 69,000 homes UK-wide.

While its average weekly rates for a three-apartment flat are 18% higher than the Scottish average, it has promised Reidvale a rent freeze until 2029.

It also plans to invest £13.7m improving homes in the neighbourhood.

Last month, 61.8% of tenants voted to approve the deal.

Reidvale’s shareholders will now vote on Monday on whether to proceed.

Katie Smart, Places for People Scotland director, said: “We are a Scottish charity and registered Scottish landlord and have been managing homes in Scotland for over 50 years.

“We are community-focused regardless of whether tenants are in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen or elsewhere.

“We work closely with local people and partners to deliver what they need, and where they need it.”

Former committee member Christine Hadden has been a tenant since 1998 and voted for the transfer.

“You could see the area was slowly but surely going downhill,” she said.

“A lot of people are looking for different things. New windows that aren’t draughty. Closes that are more secure.

“It won’t be a wish list. But at least they are attempting to bring these flats up to the 21st century.

“It should’ve been done years ago.”

When asked about concerns raised by local MSPs about the transfer, she replied: “If they can’t bring the money, shut up.

“It’s not them who live here. It’s me and every other tenant.”

‘Dirty tactics’

Labour MSP Paul Sweeney has written to the SHR taking issue with the transfer. He has previously written to the Scottish government alongside Conservative MSP Annie Wells and SNP MSP Ivan McKie.

He called the process “cynical” and involved “dirty tactics” and called on the regulator to intervene.

He told BBC Scotland News: “Just 45% of the total sitting tenants eligible to vote, cast a vote in favour of the transfer.

“It is completely unprecedented for a housing association to attempt to force through a takeover without the overwhelming backing of the tenants.”

He added: “Looking at other housing association takeovers that have happened in Scotland in recent years, the support from tenants has always been over 90% – in this instance, there is no such support.”

The Reidvale management deny regulatory breaches and said it already engages with the SHR.

It said: “It is disappointing that a member of public office continues to make such damaging and unfounded allegations and especially those of a personal nature.

“We remain confident that Reidvale has complied with all legal and regulatory requirements on all transfer matters.”

The SHR said it has “no legislative power to suspend the transfer process” and has offered to meet Mr Sweeney.

Author: Jennie Popay, Emma Halliday, Rebecca Mead - Lancaster University

Over the past quarter century, the idea has taken hold among politicians across the spectrum that one of the best ways to address inequality is to give local communities the resources to do the work themselves. Provide them with funding and they can spend it on the projects that their communities really need. But our research has shown that while many of these projects can be very positive, they can also entrench existing inequalities.

The UK’s largest community empowerment programme, the National Lottery-funded Big Local is a prime example of this thinking. Launched in 2010, it supports resident-led partnerships in 150 relatively disadvantaged areas across England. Each receives at least £1 million to improve their neighbourhood.

With colleagues from six universities, we’ve been examining the impact of Big Local on social and health inequalities since 2014. The achievements are impressive but our findings reveal something else, too.

Differences in power between individuals and groups in the communities, as well as with professionals and organisations, meant some residents benefited far more than others. Power differentials also limit the extent to which Big Local can deliver lasting change in social and health inequalities.

Positive impacts

Our research used data from surveys and public services to assess benefits among the residents involved in the 150 partnerships and the people living in their local areas. Interviews and observations in 15 areas provided more detail on these experiences.

The improvements delivered by these communities are many and varied. They have set up football clubs, built sports facilities, created community gardens, opened community hubs, increased work-related skills and improved public transport, deepening community cohesion along the way.

One partnership in south-west England employed a chef to provide free meals for children during school holidays. Another, in the north-east, supported an open-door mental health group after it lost its funding. As one resident put it:

For me, the stuff that Big Local does that has a lot of value is actually more of the quieter stuff.

Our findings concur with the resident who described involvement in Big Local as “uplifting”. Until COVID hit in 2020, mental wellbeing among residents on Big Local partnerships was improving. Levels of anxiety in Big Local populations had reduced compared to other areas.

And our cost-benefit analysis suggests Big Local is good value for money. We put a monetary value on the increase in residents life satisfaction and it was £60 million more than the cost of the programme.

Burdensome responsibilities

But it’s not all positive. Among residents on Big Local partnerships, those with higher educational qualifications (a measure of higher socio-economic position) reported improved mental wellbeing but those with no formal qualifications did not. And, at least initially, men were more likely to report improved mental wellbeing than women.

Residents’ stories help explain these inequalities. Some spoke about being burnt out from the volume of work. A resident in north-west England said:

I went through a period about 18 months ago where I was completely frazzled by the whole thing. As the partnerships mature, they take on more responsibility and one of the areas where we took on that responsibility was employing people. Yet as a partnership board we had no legal constitution; we had no procedures to speak of.

Difficult relationships also contributed. As a resident in north-west England explained:

The negative was when the board was divided. Just grinding me down. It was just like the same thing over and over; the same argument, and it was draining.

Residents were very committed but combining Big Local and family responsibilities was too much for this interviewee in Yorkshire:

The gala I found very stressful this year because it were down to me to organise it all. Then you just think, all this hassle; you’ve got your mum and dad who are getting older and poorly. Two sisters who are disabled. So, your family comes first. That’s why what I said is “I’ll step back”.

When community power isn’t enough

While Conservative and Labour politicians support the idea of community power, giving communities responsibility for improving conditions in their neighbourhoods takes a heavy toll.

If agencies work alongside communities as equals, invest long term and use resources flexibly it could reduce the burden. But the way power is distributed and exercised also needs to change.

The £1 million changed power dynamics in communities. Residents said just having money in their back pocket gave them more influence with local agencies.

Big Local also built other forms of community power. People felt confident in their ability to act together and started to understand how to build and sustain alliances within their community and with external agencies. They collected skills and knowledge to create conditions conducive to change.

But these powers were unequally distributed. Surviving poverty and discrimination is hard work at the best of times so the more people were focusing on that, the less they were able to get involved in Big Local. This, combined with gendered inequalities in power, contributed to the unequal distribution of benefits.

The power wielded by organisations such as local councils could also constrain Big Local communities. For example, some resident-led partnerships were expected to navigate complex legal processes, such as buying and managing community assets (like land or buildings) with little or no expertise or professional support.

Punters enjoy bouncy castles at the Big Local Fun Day at Barnes Park in Grassmoor, just outside Chesterfield in Derbyshire. Catherine Hoggins|Alamy

Those involved in community initiatives need to map how power dynamics affect community action, how they create inequalities in the benefits of involvement and how they need to change.

But however good they are, community empowerment initiatives like Big Local can only ever be one part of the solution to social and health inequalities. The main drivers of social and health inequalities lie outside the control of communities living in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

For example, from 2010, as Big Local was launched, austerity began to decimate public services, hitting disadvantaged areas hardest. Also from 2010, tighter eligibility rules and reduced welfare benefits further impoverished some residents and negatively affected their mental health. Significant as they are, Big Local’s achievements could not compensate for what was lost as a result of these cuts.

Research shows that communities are uniquely able to identify and prioritise problems that need solving. But that does not mean they should be left to solve them. So-called “community power” will become a form of DIY welfare if communities are expected to carry all the responsibility.

The result would be to further disadvantage those already bearing the heaviest burden and leave inequalities untouched. Community power can contribute to action for greater equity but only if disadvantaged communities use their power to build alliances beyond their neighbourhoods, locally, nationally and internationally to achieve transformational change.

In response to the issues raised in this article, Local Trust chief executive Matt Leach said: “Trusting local people to make key decisions about how to improve their neighbourhoods has to be at the heart of plans to address deprivation and regenerate communities that have missed out. For over a decade Local Trust has demonstrated how this can work in practice, working to support residents of 150 neighbourhoods across the country in the biggest ever Lottery-funded investment in community-led change.

“Many of the biggest disparities in outcome and opportunity are most profound at a neighbourhood level. This report, ten years into the Big Local programme, shows just how much can be achieved by putting local people in the lead, providing a strong evidence base that government and other funders can draw on when seeking to address disadvantage and deprivation, rebuild social infrastructure and transform our most left behind neighbourhoods.”

Author: SCVO, DTAS, COSS

A new guide for those considering or currently running a village hall has been published by Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO), with support from Scottish Rural Network and Community Ownership Support Service, part of Development Trusts Association Scotland.

Village halls and other hubs are often at the heart of their local community, especially in rural and island areas, and the new Village and Community Halls Handbook aims to guide organisations through what they need to know to manage and run a sustainable village hall or community space.

Topics covered in the new document include:

• Taking on a community space
• Governance
• Facilities management
• Digital village halls
• Climate confident village halls
• Funding
• Case studies

Author: Polly Curtis, Ben Glover, Andrew O'Brien, DEMOS

A report from DEMOS Preventative State

Public services are facing an unsustainable rising tide of demand. In response, politicians across the political spectrum are calling for a greater shift to prevention in public services. This is necessary: public services today are too reactive, intervening too late. To address this we need to move from transactional public services to relational public services. Yet this essay argues that focusing on a new model for public services is necessary but insufficient, we need a state which is more expansive in how it sees the challenge of reforming public services. That’s because to truly reduce demand for public services in the long run, we need to not only prevent problems from arising, but create the conditions for flourishing and resilience within communities. Achieving this means investing in those foundational goods which create the social capital that enables us to lead better lives, without state intervention. Only then can a truly preventative state emerge. 

A report from DEMOS Preventative State

Author: Laurie Macfarlane, Future Economy Scotland

Land Reform for a Democratic, Sustainable and Just Scotland 

Land reform has been one of the most significant achievements of the Scottish Parliament. But despite multiple waves of land reform legislation, the ownership, governance and use of land in Scotland remains stuck in the past. An archaic and dysfunctional land market continues to lie at the root of many of Scotland’s most pressing challenges – including the housing crisis, inequality, low productivity, and climate breakdown.

This report explores the key challenges that the forthcoming Land Reform Bill should seek to overcome, and outlines an ambitious agenda for land reform that aims to create a more democratic, sustainable and just Scotland. Our recommendations include bold but credible proposals to transform land market governance, diversify land ownership, develop land in the public interest, restore nature for a just transition, tax land more efficiently, and enhance market transparency. 

Click here for full report

Author: Philip Oltermann, The Guardian

The first place that Max Schranz moved into after leaving his family home is the kind that many young professionals dream of inhabiting at the peak of their career. At only 26, he lives in a bright fifth-floor apartment with high ceilings overlooking a European capital city, 10 minutes from the central station and within walking distance of cinemas, theatres and bars.

No lottery win or parental trust fund was needed to make that dream a reality: Schranz, who is a master’s student, pays €596 (£512) a month for his 54 sq metre two-bedroom apartment – a fraction of typical rents for similarly sized and similarly located apartments in other major European cities. What’s more, he didn’t have to put down a deposit and his rental contract is unlimited – in theory, he’s allowed to pass it on to his children or a sibling when he eventually decides to move on. “I’m aware it’s a pretty stress-free existence,” Schranz says. “My friends in other European cities are a bit jealous.”

Welcome to Vienna, the city that may have cracked the code of how to keep inner-city housing affordable. As other cities battle spiralling rental prices, partly fuelled by inner-city apartments being used as short-term holiday rentals or being kept strategically vacant by property speculators, the Austrian capital bucks the trend. In the place that last year retained its crown as the world’s most livable city in the Economist’s annual index, Vienna’s renters on average pay roughly a third of their counterparts in London, Paris or Dublin, according to a recent study by the accounting firm Deloitte.

Part of the reason Schranz’s apartment is so affordable is simple: it’s owned by the city. In Vienna, that is (almost) the norm. The landlord of approximately 220,000 socially rented apartments, it is the largest home-owning city in Europe (in London, which has more than 800,000 socially rented apartments, they are owned by the local councils). A quarter of the people who live in Vienna are social tenants – if you also include the approximately 200,000 co-operative dwellings built with municipal subsidies, it’s more than half the population.

Many of these apartments came into being a century ago, as part of an enormously ambitious building programme after the end of the first world war, when Vienna was awash with people uprooted by the collapse of the Habsburg empire. Funded primarily through a hypothecated tax on luxuries such as champagne or horse-riding, the inaugural phase of socialist-governed “Red Vienna” saw 65,000 socially rented apartments shoot up within the city by the time of the Nazi coup attempt in 1934.

These “superblocks” from the 20s and 30s don’t look like ordinary social housing. With the modernist ideals of the contemporaneous Bauhaus school yet to capture the imagination of Austrian architects, for one, they haven’t got flat roofs. The most famous examples of Red Vienna social housing, such as the Karl Marx-Hof in the 19th district or the estates dotted along the “Ring Road of the Proletariat” on Margaretengürtel, look more like castles or monasteries, with art deco flourishes on their facades. As the historian Eve Blau has put it: “If you’re planning something radical, it’s not a bad idea to come across as conservative as possible.”

The majority of Vienna’s council estates were built after the second world and look more familiar, but even they don’t tend to have the stigma of poverty and crime associated with similar developments in the US or Europe. Schranz’s apartment is inside the Theodor Körner-Hof, a 50s-built group of 14 housing blocks in the Margareten district that are far from fancy, yet still well-maintained enough that Schranz likes to hang out in the green inner courtyards on summer evenings to read his books.

The Viennese term for estates like these is Gemeindebauten, “communal buildings”, which hints at their underlying philosophy. “One of the key concepts to understanding Vienna’s approach to housing is social sustainability,” says Maik Novotny, an architecture critic for the Austrian newspaper Der Standard. “In order to avoid the creation of ghettoes and the costly social conflicts that come with them, the city actively strives for a mixing of people from different backgrounds and on different incomes in the same estates. Social housing isn’t just for the poor.”

As a student without a disability or any dependants, Schranz would have no hope of applying for social housing in countries such as the UK, but in Vienna the city courted him via a programme for first-time tenants under 30.

“Keeping a mix of people from different paths of life in social housing is key, and yes, it isn’t always easy,” says Kathrin Gaal, Vienna’s deputy mayor and executive councillor for housing. One tactic is an income maximum for applicants of €57,600 a year for single people and €85,830 for two-person households. But “once you’ve moved into a Gemeindebau as a young student, if you start earning more once your career progresses, we don’t check in on you, because your situation could also worsen again,” says Gaal.

Vienna’s social housing programme is more than a policy – in the city it is a foundational ideal that is a source of immense pride. And as with similar progressive achievements that command a political consensus – the UK’s National Health Service, say, or Norway’s oil fund – that can create blindspots in the national debate. Talk to Gemeindebau residents such as 76-year-old Heinz Barnerth, a retired mechanical engineer who has lived for the past seven decades in the Reumannhof estate in Margareten, and he will be unswerving in his praise of the idea that brought his block into existence in the 1920s. “Vienna’s model is more timely than ever, because rental prices are hard to contain,” he says.

But the reality doesn’t always live up to the ideal, and Barnerth is even more animated when complaining about the time it takes the city to carry out repairs in his estate. The light by the stairs leading to the basement hasn’t been working for three weeks, and when a door lock breaks, the residents usually don’t bother waiting for central management to fix it. “If you don’t sort a handyman to repair the lock overnight, the junkies try to break in,” he says. One of the downsides of having a single large company, Wiener Wohnen, in charge of managing and maintaining so much housing stock in the city is that logging and commissioning caretakers’ tasks can lead to bottlenecks.

The other downside of the Vienna model is that while 60% of the city’s residents have hit the jackpot by getting into a Gemeindebau or subsidised co-op, that still excludes a large chunk of the population of a city in which 80% are renters. Only those who have resided permanently in Vienna for two years can apply for social housing, and those who stay in private rentals face problems more familiar from other European cities.

“Twenty years ago, private rentals in Vienna were mostly low quality and low price,” says Justin Kadi, an assistant professor in planning and housing at University of Cambridge. “But in recent years, private rentals have transformed into a segment of Vienna’s housing market that is in many cases not just high quality, but also quite expensive.”

This, he explains, was largely due to deregulation in the mid-90s, which allowed landlords to charge tenants not just for size and equipment standards, but also for location, often leading to arbitrary mark-ups. As part of the same reforms, it became easier for landlords to limit contracts, putting private renters in Vienna in a less secure position.

“The only thing that other European cities can learn from Vienna is their marketing,” says Harald Simons, a Berlin-based economist and researcher who published a scathing analysis of the Viennese housing market in 2020. Vienna, Europe’s second-largest German-speaking city, has “an income structure that is more like Berlin’s but average new rental prices similar to those of a high-income city like Hamburg”, Simon says. He criticises Wiener Wohnen for its opaque accounting, suggesting its finances are in direr straits than the Vienna’s senate admits, and that the city’s underspending on maintenance is driving the middle-income earners so desired for the social mix into private rentals.

And yet, there are good reasons why Vienna’s social housing model has attracted renewed attention and regular visits from international policymakers recently.

The crucial difference is in the trend. While the number of homes in London’s socially rented sector has stayed broadly stable, at about 800,000, for example, its share of the city’s housing stock continues to fall, partly due to them being converted into privately owned homes via the right-to-buy scheme, and in part because of the lack of new homes being built while the UK capital continues to grow. Figures released just before Christmas show that 105,000 households in the UK are trapped in temporary accommodation because of a shortage of social housing. Many cities in continental Europe battle with similar problems: Berlin, for example, having missed its target for 20,000 new homes in 2022, only managed to build about 16,000 last year.

Vienna, by contrast, has the advantage of being in a monopoly position that it has never relinquished. “We never succumbed to the temptation of selling off our municipal or subsidised apartments in the way many other European cities did to plug holes in their budgets,” Gaal says. “It means our stock of housing is still vast.”

About 40 years ago, Vienna started a “land procurement and urban renewal fund” that reserves land in the city exclusively for social housing: it currently has 3m sq metres of space, including farm or fallow land, disused rail tracks and empty hospitals, that it can exclusively put out to tender to social developers. “That kind of systemic stockpiling might be something that other countries could get started on too,” Gaal says.

In 2019, Vienna introduced a new zoning rule that means that in developments with more than 5,000 sq metres of living space, two-thirds must be subsidised housing. “For cities, the question is always whether they have a good bargaining position with land owners,” even Vienna-sceptic Simons concedes. “And Vienna has a good bargaining position.” The city’s land procurement fund coordinates closely with the department that hands out planning permissions, and can strike deals accordingly.

Whether Vienna will reach its target of building 5,500 new Gemeindebau apartments by 2025 remains to be seen, and whether that will be enough if the city is expected to return to its 1910 population levels by 2038 is another question entirely. But it is taking tangible steps. After an 11-year freeze on new social housing developments, the city resumed building new Gemeindebau blocks in 2015, and has earmarked €557m for new developments in 2024. One of the most recent to be completed, by the local architecture firm WUP, lies about 7km east of the city centre in Seestadt Aspern, a new urban centre growing on the site of a former airfield.

The new urban centre at Seestadt Aspern. Photograph: Bilge Kagan Kaya/Alamy

Margarete Stoklassa, 73, and her husband moved into one of the 74 apartments from an estate in the city centre last April because they needed barrier-free access, and seem more than pleased. At 50 sq metres their new home is not huge, but a circular floorplan and several sliding walls mean that “I sometimes end up playing hide-and-seek with my husband,” says Stoklassa. “I am very happy; everything I need is here.” The couple pay €520 in rent a month.

The facades of the new-era Gemeindebau are painted in chalky reds, blues and greens that reference the mighty fortresses of the Red Vienna period, although with prices of building materials peaking during the construction phase, there is plenty of bare concrete and galvanised steel. “The rise in the cost of raw materials forced us to concentrate on what social housing is really about,” says the architect Bernhard Weinberger. Having prevailed for more than a century, Vienna’s ideals of communal living have shown they can stand the test of time. “This building should still be standing in 200 years,” he says.