Introduction

This chapter looks at the supply of private rented housing in rural Scotland. In particular, it focuses on the role played by private landowners. Rural Scotland houses about a quarter of the nation's population. Rural land is predominantly privately owned and rural rental housing is predominantly privately supplied. This means that the views and housing market behaviour of rural landowners are extremely influential. The chapter draws on research recently completed for Scottish Homes and the Scottish Landowners’ Federation (Satsangi et al, 2000).

The first section sets the context by looking at the literature relevant to rural private renting in Scotland and by drawing attention to recent national policy debate. It then looks at new national evidence on the role of private renting. Section three examines the local scale, looking at evidence on landowners’ motives from eight rural housing markets. The final section draws some conclusions.

Rural housing markets

From even the most cursory look at the geography of Scotland, it is clear that there is no homogeneity to rural areas. From readily obtainable data a variety of distinctions can be made including: lowland against upland; peri-urban against remote; relatively economically buoyant against relatively fragile. The same distinctions have important repercussions for housing demand and supply characteristics: availability, affordability, choice and constraint.

In terms of the way that housing systems work, and on a more general level, numerous classifications of rural areas have been made over the past decade (for example, Shucksmith, 1990; Departments of Geography and Land Economy, 1996; and, in England, Shucksmith et al, 1995. Using the characterisations of demand and supply pressure that these suggest, with some descriptions of local housing markets (see Scottish Homes, 1998a), it is possible to reach a functional typology of rural Scotland's housing systems:

• • ‘Buoyant’ areas where population, economic activity and housing pressure are all increasing, while supply is constrained. Examples include the Inner Moray Firth and much of West Lothian.

• • ‘Pressured’ areas where population and housing pressure are increasing, some with indigenous economic growth. These are areas with demand increasing from external sources, notably second and holiday home ownership (well known examples are: Badenoch and Strathspey; Skye and Lochalsh; Lochaber; Wester Ross) and commuting (for example, parts of the Lothians and Forth Valley).