Case Study: Affordable Housing
Atholl Estates
Estates traditionally provided houses for their estate workers but in recent decades, a changing pattern of rural employment and rising property ownership have meant that many rural estate properties have become available for rent in recent years. Throughout Scotland, estates offer these properties to local people, often at below market rents.
The growth in rental of estate properties is such that now estates in Scotland's are large scale providers of affordable housing. SEBG member estates let in excess of 3,000 affordable homes between them.
On Atholl estates around 300 of its houses have been made available to rent by people employed locally. The estate manages the properties and often liaises with Communities Scotland on significant renovation projects. Approximately ten properties are fully restored each year.
Atholl Estate works closely with the local housing forum partnership, set up in recent years by Perth and Kinross Council as part of its strategy to liaise with the private let sector for the provision of local housing. The partnership, which includes local community representatives, ensures that information on local housing need, planning and allocations policy is all shared.
Whilst there are regularly over 100 applicants on the Estate's waiting list for property, around 20 or so properties become available each year for let. There is no formal integration with the local authority housing waiting list but good links between both the local authority and local housing associations ensure the Estate's allocations accurately address the local housing needs.
Atholl Estates also stands ready to support local home ownership by being prepared to allocate estate land to local housing associations for housing development. Projects involving land zoned for housing are taken to the design stage in partnership with housing association and local community interests. Once planning and building control consents have been secured, the land is then sold on for the housing association to develop, honouring the estate's preference for prioritising local applicants.
Estate-driven local housing projects are a relatively new phenomenon, and a recently completed project on Atholl was one of the first to trial private sector involvement in Communities Scotland's Homestake project. A development project of 6 houses, designed in consultation with Communities Scotland for availability on the local market, identified one unit to enter the Homestake Scheme in partnership with Perthshire Housing Association. The exercise enabled both the Estate and PHA better to understand how the scheme can be employed in the rural market. Atholl Estates actively takes an interest in initiating such developments, becoming involved proactively rather than waiting to be invited to participate.
