Lost Alternatives to Council Housing? An Examination of Stirling's Alternative Housing Initiatives, c. 1906–1939

Abstract

This article aims to examine possible alternatives to the first wave of council-house building in Scotland. Alternative approaches to deal with Scotland's housing problem are considered and the reasons for their failure to compete with council housing are considered. The Burgh of Stirling has been chosen because its politics suggest that it may have been less enthusiastic about building council houses and more amenable to exploring alternative solutions. Three ‘alternatives’ are discussed. The first was the Homesteads experiment, which, immediately prior to the First World War, successfully built a small number of houses with adjacent land on which the occupants grew food for themselves. The second experiment was a limited project by the Town Council, devised just before 1914, of demolition and widening a single street in the old town, which sought to encourage private companies to build replacement tenements. The third undertaking was the Thistle Trust, which sought to preserve the medieval dwellings huddled around Stirling Castle.