Tom Johnston’s viewed as transforming the Highlands and Islands when Secretary of State for Scotland, establishing the hydro-electric board bringing power to the Highlands, along with setting up the Forestry Commission and the Tourist Board.
Another Red Clydesider also left a legacy for the Highlands and indeed all of Scotland and did so a few decades before Johnston.
That was John Wheatley who was Health Minister in Ramsay McDonalds otherwise ignominious administration in 1924.
Wheatley starting the building of council housing.
Pre NHS the department having a different focus although showing the links and importance of housing to public health which still apply today.
Wheatley’s crusade was driven by the slums and the crisis he saw in Clydeside.
But now homelessness, lack of available and affordable housing, dampness and rogue landlords, and rental costs are all factors resulting in councils the length and breadth of Scotland declaring a Housing Emergency.
Impacting businesses with firms unable to recruit due to lack of housing.
Meanwhile yet another generation of young Highlanders leaving, denied a home in their community.
The crisis is visible all around in those sleeping rough on our streets, overcrowding, rental costs and lack of availability, along with the equally pernicious ill health, both mental and physical, inculcated by it.
Wheatley’s was a slow start, but it laid the groundwork for what would benefit millions of Scots over coming generations.
“Wheatley Houses” are still viewed as the pick of the stock all these years on.
Other homes followed and council housing become the primary tenure for Scots by the 1960s.
Of course, mistakes were also made along the way, with shoddy homes in peripheral schemes and poor quality tower blocks testifying to that.
But it did mean that housing was available, affordable and in the main of decent quality.
Then along came Thatcher.
Not only was available stock disposed of at a huge discount, but councils were left with historic housing debt and reduced income with which to service it.
Ensuring that other than specialist housing protected by law building anymore simply increased the black hole facing councils with build costs never able to be recovered from a future buyer.
Alex Salmond’s first government abolished “the right to buy” and again commenced council house building.
But its slowed over recent years and the scale of what’s being built is nowhere near adequate for the current crisis.
Small developments are welcome but inadequate.
Bringing back empty housing into stock and buying back former council homes’ s equally so.
It’s why it should be back to the future with housing.
Building council houses is the solution for much of our housing crisis, helping address poverty, ill health, and even anti-social behaviour and alienation.
A century on from Wheatley’s actions we need to see them replicated.
Government funds are limited but finance is available from pension funds and other financial lenders all at reasonable rates.
Councils and Governments are viewed as safe investments with a steady return.
Building them allows for local labour to be employed in construction, rents to be obtained by the council when built and money spent in the community by families living there.
A virtuous circle not just a vital social need.
A mass council house building was transformatory a century ago and it’s needed once again.
Funds are available it’s the political will that’s required.
