Developing new Homes in Scotland – a real opportunity?

The challenges around housing delivery in Scotland are well rehearsed, but there is also an abundance of opportunity which can be, and in real terms has been, capitalised to deliver transformative regeneration with development of new homes at its heart.

Our second panel session of our Homes 2025 Conference, titled Developing New Homes in Scotland – A Real Opportunity?, brought together industry leaders Graeme Bone, Group Managing Director, Drum Property Group; Lindsay Lauder, Director of Development and Regeneration, Wheatley Group; Tim Metcalfe, Regional Managing Director, Keepmoat Homes; and Makela Milne, Director - Residential & Development Land, JLL to celebrate examples of success and explore the current landscape, challenges, and future prospects of housing development across Scotland.

Key Insights and Challenges

We began the session with a live audience poll which revealed that the most impactful changes to unlock Scotland’s development potential would be a more stable regulatory environment (42%) and increased ambition from the Scottish Government (38%). Did our panel of experts agree?

1. Market Analysis: Makela Milne

Makela Milne set the scene for us - highlighting the resilience of the living sector, which emerged as the most active investment area in 2024 despite a challenging backdrop. Site starts were down, but impressively, forward funding deals in early 2025 already match the total for 2024. She underscored the chronic undersupply across student housing, BTR, affordable housing, and retirement living and pointed out that current BTR stock meets only 2% of demand – therefore representing a huge opportunity to address this. However, international investors standing behind potential new BTR schemes must have clarity on the terms of the Housing Bill.

An interesting proposition from Makela was that all sites should be tri-tenure, delivering housing for sale, housing for market rent (whether single or multi-family) and housing for affordable rent. This could support housing delivery by providing house builders with a guaranteed off-taker for a proportion of the development (in addition to the affordable contribution), improving viability and therefore promoting site starts and delivering supply more quickly.

2. Mixed-Use Regeneration: Graeme Bone

Graeme Bone shared the powerful success story of Buchanan Wharf, a £500 million Glasgow city-centre mixed use regeneration project that exemplifies effective public-private collaboration. With early and strong engagement from Glasgow City Council and rapid planning approvals, the project was able to progress at pace, moving from site assembly in 2017 to completion in 2023.

Glasgow City Council further embraced the opportunity to support the huge investment in the development of the Clyde Waterfront by supporting the cost of essential works to the quay wall with investment from the Glasgow City Region Deal £115 million Clyde Waterfront and West End Innovation Quarter project.

Delivering 324 BTR homes known as Solasta Riverside, together with the 470,000 sq. ft. Barclays Campus and new office space leased to Student Loans Company, the Buchanan Wharf development revitalised a brownfield site of unused buildings and a derelict car park into a vibrant city centre district. Solasta Riverside even became Legal & General’s fastest-letting BTR scheme in the UK.

Buchanan Wharf is an example of a developer seizing an opportunity and developing a vision which is quickly shared by a local authority and investors to deliver incredible results.

3. Social Housing and Regeneration: Lindsay Lauder

Representing Wheatley Housing Group, Scotland’s largest social landlord, Lindsay discussed Wheatley's delivery of 700 affordable homes annually across 19 local authorities and its desire to deliver even more affordable homes. Wheatley delivers no homes for sale and no commercial property, helping it to maintain its high credit rating which in turns supports favourable borrowing terms allowing it to maximise its delivery capability.

Lindsay emphasised Wheatley's extensive focus on regeneration in areas like Calton Village where Wheatley is transforming a vacant site close to the city centre into a new community with 264 high-quality affordable homes which incorporates the largest district heating network in Glasgow, a real example of the opportunity which exists for affordable housing delivery to drive the transformation of derelict sites into housing developments which meet national priorities around delivery of affordable housing and net-zero priorities. Wheatley is also a key partner in the delivery of the Sighthill Transformational Regeneration Area delivered by Transforming Communities: Glasgow, a partnership between Glasgow City Council, Wheatley Group and the Scottish Government, where its private-rent property company, Lowther Homes, has delivered a £25.9m development of 86 one and two-bedroom flats and two and three-bedroom homes, all for mid-market rent.

4. NorthBridge Development , Sighthill, Glasgow: Tim Metcalfe

Tim picked up the discussion on the NorthBridge project, which is an exemplar in long-term partnership working, with a variety of partners and stakeholders effectively working together including Keepmoat Homes building and selling homes, and developing retail and commercial units; Wheatley Group (Lowther Homes) managing homes for mid-market rent; Glasgow City Council being the lead partner in the regeneration project (who appointed Keepmoat Homes as the developer of the private homes); and Transforming Communities: Glasgow (a partnership between Glasgow City Council, Glasgow Housing Association (Wheatley Homes Glasgow), and the Scottish Government) with additional funding, overseeing the regeneration of Sighthill.

This partnership driven project will deliver over 1,150 homes in the next eight years. The NorthBridge project forms part of the £250million Sighthill Transformational Regeneration Area which is the biggest project of its kind in the UK outside of London. When complete, the project will have created a new neighbourhood on the north side of the city centre 15 minutes’ walk from George Square via the new (and already iconic) "Rusty Bridge" across the M8. In addition to homes, the completed project will deliver a new community campus school, significant improved greenspace, a new public square, new shops and commercial space.

Again, the NorthBridge project is an example of a local authority recognising a significant opportunity to deliver a once in a generation change and taking actions available to it to support private investment enabling delivery – in this case issuing a complex Compulsory Purchase Order to consolidate multiple land ownerships and providing funding through the Glasgow City Region City Deal.

Opportunities and Future Projects

The themes emerging from our panellists were clear, and did support the conclusions of the audience poll:

International Investment: Investment is key to capitalise on opportunity: stability and clarity in Government policy—especially around rent controls—are essential to attract global capital.

Public-Private Collaboration: Projects like Buchanan Wharf and NorthBridge demonstrate the power of aligned public and private sector efforts.

Skills Development: Reforming education and changing perceptions of construction careers are vital to future delivery capacity – even if the policy position is settled, and all other challenges are met, development will continue to be constrained if the contractor market remains thin.

Conclusion

The session underscored that while Scotland faces significant challenges in housing delivery, there are also real opportunities. With stronger political leadership, a stable regulatory framework, and a collaborative mindset, the sector can unlock its full potential and meet the growing demand for homes across the country.