Demolished house numbers to accommodate 118,000 new affordable homes: FOI release

Information requested

You currently publish building 118,000 affordable homes. Can you advise how many homes were demolished to accommodate the building of these new homes.

Do we as a country have a net gain of new homes over the last 5 years?

Response

The information you have requested is available from the Scottish Government website. Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed below, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

Whilst we hold no data on homes demolished specifically in relation to new affordable housing supply, annual estimates of all housing demolitions from 1999-00 up to the year 2020-21 are published on the Scottish Government Housing statistics: Conversions and demolitions webpage, based on information provided to the Scottish Government by local authorities.

Note that these estimates are not considered comprehensive. Estimates of demolitions of local authority housing are thought to be generally accurate, however local authorities differ in their ability to provide comprehensive estimates of demolitions of private sector and housing association homes. As such, these estimates should be considered as the minimum level of demolition activity in Scotland.

Also note that when this information is reported it is presented in the categories of local authority and other tenures (housing association or private). For these other tenures, it is not always clear based on the information provided by local authorities if this relates to housing association, private sector, or both. The figures presented are therefore not able to be disaggregated into a total combined social figure covering local authority and housing association demolitions.

In terms of the net gain in the number of homes, the Scottish Government Housing and Regeneration Outcomes Framework reports on the number of occupied dwellings in Scotland. This is based on National Records of Scotland annual dwelling estimates, with the figures being able to be used to track the net change in the total number of homes over time. The latest available figures up to 2021 are included in the set of current published indictor updates at Housing and regeneration outcomes framework: indicator updates.

These figures show that the total number of occupied dwellings in Scotland has increased each year over the latest 5 years 2017 to 2021, and that the number of occupied dwellings over this period has increased by 72,596 homes (3%), from 2.49 million in 2017 to 2.56 million in 2021.

Separate figures on social rented housing stock over the same period, based on social landlord stock data, are published as part of annual housing statistics published at Housing Statistics 2020 & 2021: Key Trends Summary (see Chart 8a). This shows that total social housing stock (local authority and housing association stock combined) has increased each year over the latest 5 years 2017 to 2021, and that social housing stock over this period has increased by 17,479 homes (3%), from 594 thousand in 2017 to 611 thousand in 2021.

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