South of Scotland Community Housing

Funding at a glance

Programme: Backing Community-Led Housing
Amount: £371,813
Approved: 2018
Timescale:  Eight years
Status: Funding in progress
Phase:Decent Affordable Homes Phase Three

Enabling the development of and increasing support for the community-led housing sector in Scotland.


Strategic purpose

To continue supporting and developing community-led housing projects in southern Scotland and, in collaboration with Communities Housing Trust – another of our community-led-housing funded partners – raise awareness of the viability of community-led housing by increasing its profile and level of political support in Scotland. It also aims to secure long-term funding for the sector.

Why we’re funding this project

We’ve made long-term commitments to fund community-led housing projects because we believe that if delivered at scale, this form of housing would offer a genuine alternative to the standard (and often failing) method of providing affordable homes.

As well as funding South of Scotland Community Housing to continue providing information and support to communities, increasing its number of active projects, and carrying out its other enabling work, we’re taking advantage of a unique joint-funding opportunity with the Scottish government, which has shown strong cross-party support for the community-led housing sector. Over the next three years, from 2023, we will partner with the government to fund South of Scotland Community Housing and Communities Housing Trust as part of its Remote, Rural and Islands Housing Action Plan, which is informed by its Housing to 2040 strategy, which seeks to deliver genuinely affordable homes in Scotland.

Alongside Communities Housing Trust, South of Scotland Community Housing will be working to realise a set of outcomes, which include increasing the number of long-term funding options available for community-led housing, raising the profile and awareness of community-led housing in Scotland, delivering more community-led housing in Scotland, and increasing cross-party support for community-led housing among Scottish parliamentarians.

The government’s joint funding will also help South of Scotland Community Housing extend its enabler services, which support community-led housing groups in rural and urban communities in southern Scotland.

Project description

South of Scotland Community Housing is a community-led housing enabler providing services to rural and urban communities across southern Scotland. It aims to build the capacity, scale, and sustainability of community-led housing by offering support to housing schemes through all stages of development in the region in which it operates.

We’ve been funding South of Scotland Community Housing since 2018 to grow the community-led housing sector and develop its enabling work.

So far, our funding has helped South of Scotland Community Housing provide 24 new homes across nine projects; support more groups to progress through the life cycle of their schemes – with the number of groups supported growing from six in 2018 to 37 in 2023 and a further large-scale development awaiting adoption — and secure regional-level support from Dumfries and Galloway local authority, with community-led housing forming part of its Strategic Housing Investment Plan.

Back to funding 2016–present