Voice from… the ARL Scotland Hub

Kicking off the first in our new Voice from… series, we hear from the ARL Scotland Hub.

The ARL Scotland Hub went through a refresh this year with a new Chair and Deputy Chair appointed and several new Hub members welcomed. Iain Murray, Chair, reflects on some of the Hub’s recent activities and issues in Scotland.

It is a crucial time for the Living Sector in Scotland now as a new Housing Bill passes through the Scottish Parliament. I met recently with David Melhuish and Anamika Dwivedi of the Scottish Property Federation (SPF) together with Brendan Geraghty CEO of the ARL and Robin Blacklock of ‘More Homes More Quickly’ to discuss a collective contribution to a letter that went to the Housing Minister to lobby for a reconsideration of the Rent Controls in the current draft of the Housing Bill. The letter was widely reported in the Scottish Press and included signatures from SPF, ARL, MHMQ, The Scottish Association of Landlords, Scottish Land and Estates, Propertymark, Hearthstone Investments and Rettie & Co.

 A couple of weeks later I attended an SPF organised Glasgow Regional Dinner with a group of influential people from the Living Sector to lobby the Housing Minister directly. I personally made an impassioned plea to the Minister to make an amendment to the Housing Bill specifically in relation to Rent Caps to unlock hundreds of millions of inward investments. We are told there will be an announcement on this around October.  Attendees included MSPs Ivan McKee and Paul McLennan along with Fiona Simpson (Scottish Government Chief Planner) and Kathryn Fergusson (Scottish Government National Performance Unit).

It’s a serious issue, I understand that there are up to 18 developments previously slated for BTR which are pivoting to PBSA because of this Bill, and reports of figures of up to £3.4bn of investment evaporating because of the lack of confidence in Scotland. The ARL Scottish Hub wants to see a burgeoning BTR sector, but at the moment we might be stuck at a few hundreds of open and operating homes as opposed to several thousand. We continue to lobby with other leading organisations for change, let’s hope we get it.

Iain Murray, Chair ARL Scotland Hub