Panel Discussion: The Housing Emergency Beyond Numbers

The housing emergency is both a systemic issue and one that affects people on a deeply personal level. Yet it is often framed through impersonal numbers: housing targets, planning permissions, investment, starts and completions.

At the same time, communities across Scotland face a wider set of interconnected pressures, from rising housing costs and insecurity to climate breakdown, biodiversity loss and increasing strain on natural resources.

These challenges are deeply linked, yet rarely discussed together.

The question is no longer simply how many homes we build, but what kind of homes we create, how and where we build them, and whether they strengthen communities and contribute to a liveable future.