Resources

Community ownership

Community Ownership Support Service: supports community ownership and asset transfer of buildings and land, managed by DTA Scotland.

Plunkett Foundation: advice and case studies on running community businesses like shops, business hubs or pubs.

Scottish Land Commission: online advice about funding sources and different types of funding for bringing vacant and derelict land back into use. Their Impact Tool is a simple-to-use way for local communities to assess and record the impact of vacant and derelict land on the community’s wellbeing.

The Churches Route Map: guides community groups, looking at purchasing a building owned by the Church of Scotland, through the steps to community ownership.

Town Centre Living

Architecture and Design Scotland: provides guidance on building communities in town centres through intergenerational housing: see “A Caring Place” report, case studies and blog.

Carnegie’s Living Well Index: the Life in the UK 2025 Scotland report measures collective wellbeing, identifying where progress is being made and the areas that require intervention.

Scotland’s Land Information Services: an easy-to-use Scottish Government website which enables you to find property owners, check if a property is on the land register, search for property prices and buy property documents.

Scottish Empty Homes Partnership: offers an Empty Homes Advice Service, and encourages Scotland’s approximately 40,000 privately-owned empty homes back into use.

Scottish Futures Trust: supports public sector initiatives for new homes for rent.

Under One Roof: an online resource full of useful information about maintenance and management of tenements, flats and other common property (old and new) for owners, tenants and advisers.

Understanding Scottish Places: provides data insights on the make up of a place, including population and household, social, employment, environmental and other indicators. Supporting practitioners to understand and compare places across Scotland to build, building knowledge on the local context.

Vacancy, reuse, repurpose

Built Environment Forum Scotland: range of case studies, fundraising toolkit, briefings, advocacy toolkit and other useful information particularly related to the historic environment.

Historic Environment Scotland is the lead public body set up to investigate, care for and promote Scotland’s historic environment. As well as providing information on how to protect and care for Scotland’s historic places they also have a variety of grant funding programmes which can support projects of all sizes.

Heritage Trust Network brings together heritage professionals and enthusiasts to tackle buildings at risk.

Glasgow City Council’s Meanwhile Use Toolkit provides a wealth of detail on the benefits of meanwhile use, approaches and check lists.

National Lottery Heritage Fund is a major funder of heritage projects throughout the UK; its website contains a range of interesting case studies.

Scotland’s Land Information Services is an easy-to-use Scottish Government website which enables you to find property owners, check if a property is on the land register, search for property prices and buy property documents.

Local authority planning departments may be able to offer expert advice and possibly funding to help tackle vacant or derelict sites and buildings; what is available differs between local authorities around the country. Whilst responsibility for maintenance of any building rests with its owner, local authorities also have discretion to use certain powers:

• Dangerous or defective buildings: Building (Scotland) Act 2003, sections 28-30.
• Listed Buildings: Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) (Scotland) Act 1997, section 49 onwards.
• Sub-standard housing: Housing (Scotland) Act 2006.
• Condition of land: Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997, section 179.
• Building repairs and maintenance of private open space: Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982.
• Compulsory Purchase Orders.
• Power to advance well-being: Local Government In Scotland Act 2003.

Local authorities also have the powers to:

• Use the Town Centre First Principle to deliver public services and capital investments, driving up town centre footfall and investment activity and encouraging other landowners to follow suit (see the Dumbarton and Kilmarnock examples in this section).
• Create a one-stop shop or key council contact for town centre businesses, for example helping them to navigate through statutory consents like planning, building control and environmental protection requirements (for example West Lothian Council’s network of town centre officers).
• Use collaborative town centre visioning and community engagement to set the agenda for Local Development Plans to help to deliver a common community vision.
• Develop strategies for re-populating town centres with residential use.

Streets and spaces

2015 Scottish Town Centre Toolkit: Published in 2015, the original Toolkit had a greater focus on physical urban design than the current Toolkit. It contained lots of information and guidance about the design of streets, spaces and buildings to make town centres more attractive, accessible and inclusive. Much of this information is still appropriate now.

Architecture and Design Scotland: their comprehensive Stalled Spaces Toolkit contains lots of inspirational ideas and practical information about how to re-use stalled development sites, under-used green spaces or vacant land – for anything from event spaces to food-growing. Their Stalled Spaces Programme has more information.

greenspace scotland: a social enterprise which supports the planning, development and sustainable management of green spaces and green networks in our towns and cities.

Living Streets Scotland: a free online toolkit for people to reclaim parts of streets to create mini popup ‘parklets’ in their local community.

Play Scotland: Getting it Right for Play Toolkit is a practical and comprehensive guide to providing more and better play opportunities for children and young people in Scotland. 

Secured by Design: An official UK police initiative that improves the security of buildings and their immediate surroundings to provide safe places to live, work, shop and visit. Their interactive 3D design guide gives an easy-to-use overview of how to ‘design-out’ crime in spaces and buildings.

Walking Scotland: offers lots of information and resources to encourage walking, including inspirational case studies from around Scotland, resources for building and maintaining paths and funding opportunities.

Walk Wheel Cycle Trust: a great source of information and funding.

Transport Scotland: offers information on active travel including the Active Travel Framework and Cycling Framework for Active Travel.