The first guide in Scotland to support community organisations undertake their own housing or development projects is now freely available online.

The 'Routemap' resource was launched by the Cabinet Secretary for Housing Shona Robison MSP at the Communities Housing Trust's AGM in Inverness last month.

The Communities Housing Trust created the guide and film case studies in partnership with communities across Scotland, with funding support from the Nationwide Foundation.

CEO Ronnie MacRae said: "We want to increase understanding, raise confidence, and ultimately support more communities to undertake projects of their own. We've now worked with well over 100 communities facilitating community-led housing, so it's based on sound and varied experience."

Recognising that taking on a community-led housing project can feel overwhelming and complicated, particularly for communities with limited time and resources, it is intended to help demystify and map out the main stages of the process.

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Community-led housing is about local people playing a leading and fundamental role in solving their specific housing problems, creating long-term, affordable homes and strong, resilient communities in ways that are difficult to achieve through mainstream housing alone.

In Scotland, community-led housing is supported by the Scottish Government through the Rural and Islands Housing Fund which was set up in 2016 and enables community groups to access grants to part-fund community-led housing projects.

Cabinet Secretary for Housing, Shona Robison MSP said at the launch: "Every community is different and while some communities have experience of delivering housing solutions to meet their needs, there are others who don't have that capacity to bring forward their own housing projects, so I really welcome the Community-Led Housing Routemap. I hope it will stimulate even more communities to bring forward many more new housing projects to help sustain and strengthen local areas.

"What we've seen on the video [case study] with Staffin really brings it to life – that's the end product of all of that hard work over many years, of actually delivering homes for people, and that means people can stay living in their own communities. For me that's what it's all about."

The Routemap guide and accompanying film case studies are available to view and download on the Communities Housing Trust's website: www.chtrust.co.uk/routemap