HOUSING IN SCOTLAND While the greater part of what has been written in regard to housing in England and Wales would apply to Scotland also, there are certain distinctions which should be known, and certain aspects of the problem which are special to that country.
The standard of housing north of the Tweed, measured in the number of rooms per dwelling, has been lower than in England; one or two roomed dwellings prevail to a far greater extent ; and less complete separation of sleeping rooms from living rooms has taken place. On the other hand, the difference in area occu pied per family is not as great as the difference in the number of rooms would suggest, for the rooms are generally larger in pre-war Scottish dwellings than in the English cottages of like period. The prevalence in the larger towns, particularly in Edin burgh and Glasgow, of the tenement block as the method of housing the working classes has also distinguished Scottish prac tice from English.
The whole problem of housing in Scotland was exhaustively investigated by a Royal Commission which was appointed in Oct. 1912 and published its report in 1918. The commission then estimated that before the housing conditions in Scotland could be regarded as satisfactory 235,990 dwellings would need to be provided, of which number they considered 121,430 were immediately needed to relieve overcrowding and take the place of dwellings clearly unfit for habitation. Their estimates were based on the census of 1911 which showed the population as 4,760,904, the number of occupied houses 1,013,369 and unoccu pied 89,060. The commission recommended that no tenements should be built more than three stories high, or exceeding, when three stories high, 32 dwellings to the acre. For double flatted houses 24 to the acre, and for single cottages 16, were recom mended as the maximum numbers to be permitted ; and these limits they advised should be embodied in an appropriate act of parliament.
The various housing acts giving financial assistance to stimu late the building of houses already described have applied to Scotland, with slight variations chiefly in regard to administra tion. Building progress there has not been equally rapid, how ever; probably the much larger volume of work in the neighbour ing country had the effect of creating a stronger draw on the inadequate supplies both of labour and materials. The following shows the progress made up to the end of April 1928: Persons Per Room.—Bearing in mind the difference in size of rooms and character of dwellings already referred to, the following particulars, taken from the 1911 and 1921 census re turns, show the changes during the inter census period ; if com pared with similar figures given for England and Wales, they also indicate the difference in the standard of housing between the two countries.
*Calculated from percentage increase or decrease.
It will be noted that the figures indicating a movement towards houses having more rooms, and the reduction of the proportion of those living in the one roomed dwelling, are more favourable than in England and Wales ; while the reduction in numbers occupying houses having more than six rooms is relatively greater.