On 17^th March 2021, ETF members were delighted to find out more about City of Edinburgh Council’s (CEC’s) new house building programme and Shelter’s Social Housing Campaign: Build Scotland’s Future.

ETF members are well aware of the pressure on Social Housing waiting lists in the city and across Scotland and are avid campaigners for investment in new and existing social housing to make sure everyone has a safe, warm, well maintained and suitable home.

Tricia Hill, CEC’s Development and Regeneration Manager spoke about CEC’s progress to date as well as future plans, including:

• CEC’s house building programme aims to deliver 10,000 affordable new homes by 2027;
• 1450 homes have been completed so far;
• 550 homes are currently under construction;
• Over 4000 homes are in pre-construction/design development.

Maddie Lou Barink, Community Organiser at Shelter Scotland advised the Build Scotland’s Future Campaign. 

• The campaign aims to get all the major political parties standing at this year’s Scottish Parliament elections to commit to building 37,100 social homes;
• So far 18,183 people have signed Shelter’s petition to encourage all the major political to commit to doing so;
• Shelter is providing training to leaders in the community to start building a base for change;
• Shelter is looking to increase connections between groups in Edinburgh.

ETF’s Convenor Betty Stone commented, “We would like to thank Tricia and Maddie for attending our members’ meeting.  It was great to hear about CEC’s housebuilding programme, which is both very ambitious and exciting.  We at ETF have already signed the Shelter petition and we would like to encourage as many people and organisations as possible to do likewise”.

Shelter’s petition is open up until the Scottish Parliament election on Thursday 6^th May and can be signed by clicking here.

You can find out more about the work of ETF by clicking here.