Annual starts and completions fall in Scotland but SFHA says social housing sector shows ‘green shoots of recovery’

The Affordable Housing Supply Programme also showed signs of recovery in approvals and starts, even as completions continued to fall.

The programme delivered 6,832 completions in 2025-26, down 8%, or 611 homes, on the previous year. This marked the lowest level of affordable housing completions since 2015-16.

Affordable housing approvals rose 42% to 6,787, while starts increased 37% to 7,421. However, both remained significantly below pre-pandemic levels, with approvals 47% lower than their 2019-20 peak and starts down 38%.

By the end of March 2026, 35,368 homes had been delivered towards the Scottish government’s target of 110,000 affordable homes by 2032.

Of these, 27,297 were for social rent, representing 77% of the total. A further 5,089 were for affordable rent, while 2,982 were for affordable homeownership.

Richard Meade, chief executive of the SFHA, said: “Despite Scotland last month entering the third year of its housing emergency, [the] statistics show that housing completions continue to falter whilst more families wait in desperate need of a safe, warm and affordable home.

“Whilst it is welcome that the decline in starts and approvals has been halted and we’re seeing some tentative green shoots of recovery, the bigger picture shows that the number of homes being approved is still almost [50% lower than] pre-pandemic levels.”

Mr Meade said the Scottish government needed to set out how it would build on the early signs of improvement “with the pace this emergency demands”.

The latest homelessness statistics show 10,480 children were in temporary accommodation in Scotland at the end of September 2025.

Mr Meade added: “Put simply, if we are to give any hope to the nearly 10,500 children growing up in temporary accommodation then the Programme for Government this autumn must be a Programme for Housing.

“The scale of this emergency demands urgency, political willingness and a fully funded plan to deliver the 15,693 social and affordable homes Scotland needs each year of this parliament.

“This parliament cannot fail housing. The consequences for our economy, health, education and well-being would be devastating.”

The Scottish government said that, excluding 2020-21, when delivery was affected by Covid, all-sector completions were at their lowest level since 2016-17.

Starts were at their lowest level since 2012-13, and were 23% lower than the level recorded in 2020-21.