Grants helping to fund improvements to private homes in Glasgow

Published: 26 September 2023

Almost £7.7million was provided through Glasgow City Council's Private Sector Housing Grant programme to repair and maintain private homes in the 2022/23 financial year, a council committee heard today (26 September).

Of this funding, £2.325million went towards disabled adaptation and care and repair (including £145,000 supplementary funding from Glasgow's Health and Social Care Partnership); £3.303million towards voluntary repairs, including small-scale works; £1.83million towards statutory repairs, including 'missing shares'; £221,000 towards housing initiatives; and £154,000 on other projects. Around 207,000 homes (around 66% of the total) in Glasgow are in private ownership, and therefore their condition is important to delivering the city's housing priorities of improving both the condition of the housing stock, preserving Glasgow's tenements and built heritage, and the energy efficiency of the city's homes.

A key focus of the Private Sector Housing Grant (PSHG) work was on the city's substantial stock of pre-1919 tenements (about 70,000 such homes exist across Glasgow) with the council working in partnership with housing associations in areas with a high proportion of property condition and management issue such as Govanhill, Ibrox/Cessnock and East Pollokshields. The PSHG investment in these tenements helps stop their decline and prevents potential demolition.

The council works with the city's Health and Social Care Partnership to provide grants to help with the costs of certain essential adaptation works in homes of people with a disability.

Financial support will continue to be provided for private owners where they take responsibility for the repair of their tenement properties and are prepared to carry out works on a voluntary basis.

Another part of the PSHG programme is the 'Missing Share' project, where funding underwrites the costs of the minority of owners unwilling or unable to pay their share for repairs, with these owners then pursued for full recovery of their share on completion of works. The success of this project is underlined by an outlay of just over £1million by the council has resulted in the delivery of over £20million in works to private homes in the city.

Housing initiatives at a number of locations - Linnhead Drive/Ravenscraig Drive in Priesthill; London Road/Monteith Row at Glasgow Green; and Dunphail Drive/Dunphail Road/Lochdochart Road in Easterhouse; and the B Listed 'Bell o' the Brae' tenements in High Street - have been progressed where concerns were raised about the condition of private housing, often where this is a high concentration of privately-rented homes.

The council has also provided funding to support energy efficiency, fabric repair and retrofit work in pre-1919 tenements, and in the next two financial years, £1.7million will be spent on retrofitting work on such homes.

Another success of this programme is the continued return to use of long-term empty homes (454 brought back into use between April 2022 - March 2023) with the council working with housing associations to acquire flats, and promote compulsory purchase orders, where repairs have been blocked.

Today's committee also noted the 2023/24 PSHG proposals, which will continue to address private housing repair and property management issues in Glasgow.

Councillor Kenny McLean, Convener for Housing at Glasgow City Council,said: "The Private Sector Housing Grant programme continues - in a wide variety of ways - to improve the condition of homes in Glasgow. The programme has transformed the condition, energy use and management of privately-owned homes in the city, all key to the quality of life of the people living there and the quality of space in these areas."