Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work Convener Cllr Tim Pogson writes in the Evening News today
Two years ago, Edinburgh made the difficult but necessary decision to declare a housing emergency. The capital continues to face unprecedented demand for housing, amidst challenging market conditions, ongoing budget pressures and insufficient funding from The Scottish Government.
But over the past year, since the latest version of the Housing Emergency Action Plan was approved in June 2025, we have begun to make real progress. Our plan is iterative and dynamic and will continue to evolve until we are out of the housing emergency.
The themes of the Plan are clear - housing supply and demand for housing. We must increase the supply of genuinely affordable homes, reduce reliance on temporary accommodation, and prevent more people from falling into homelessness in the first place.
In the past year we’ve made some real moves to address this. Thousands of affordable homes have been delivered or are in the pipeline, with more than 1,200 homes currently under construction, plans for 830 more approved and over 1,400 completed last year.
Some of the transformative Council- led developments progressing across the city include the regeneration of Powderhall, which will deliver a mix of over 200 new affordable and private homes, our ongoing project to build over 700 new mixed tenure homes at Pennywell, around half of which will be affordable, and recently approved plans to construct 49 new homes at Burdiehouse.
These efforts are being bolstered by significant funding commitments, from a record breaking £1.6bn investment in affordable homes over the next five years, to our plans to invest part of the returns from the Edinburgh Visitor Levy in to a £5m Housing and Tourism Mitigation Fund to support affordable housing delivery. Thanks to our New Build Housing Framework Agreement the first part of which went live last month, we’ll also be able to accelerate housebuilding projects thanks to more efficient routes to procuring contracts.
But if we want to hit our target to increase the city’s housing supply by 5,900 over the next five years we need to think creatively. As well as new build homes for social rent and mid-market rent properties, we will also be trialling innovative pilots, like the conversion of garages into bungalows and exploring the use of modular homes.
This week, we have had confirmed grant funding levels from Scottish Government for the next four years. We welcome these longer-term planning assumptions and the fact that there are flexibilities in how this funding can be used. Edinburgh is receiving 9.5% of the allocated national programme, around 3% higher than in previous years.
Work with housing associations and delivery partners will also be essential to progress, helping bring forward homes that might otherwise have been delayed. £126million of the approved budget will be used to help Registered Social Landlords to continue to develop affordable homes. The grant funding for affordable housing from the Scottish Government year on year has been less than half the amount required to deliver the city’s ambitious development pipeline, and so the Council is seeking to support its partners to see this pipeline become a reality.
While there is still much to do, the progress to date shows that sustained action, partnership working, and political commitment can make a real difference, and we must continue to do so if Edinburgh is to ensure safe, secure housing for all its residents.