On 29 April 2025, committee members and staff past and present gathered at Glasgow’s Trades Hall for a special event to mark 50 years since the first community based housing associations (CBHAs) were registered by the Housing Corporation in Scotland in 1975.
The event was run by GWSF in conjunction with Share, Employers in Voluntary Housing and Glasgow City Council.
Guests heard from a range of speakers, including Raymond Young, formerly of the Housing Corporation (and author of Annie’s Loo – the Govan origins of Scotland’s Community Based Housing Associations), and both Anna Stuart and Irene McInnes, who looked back to their involvement in setting up early CBHAs in Glasgow.
The event was run by GWSF in conjunction with Share, Employers in Voluntary Housing and Glasgow City Council, with additional kind sponsorship from TC Young: our warm thanks to all our event partners.
We are indebted to Ally Bruclay Media, our videographer for the day, who has prepared a 32-minute ‘highlights of the day’ film, along with separate films of all the individual speaker contributions, as listed below with links to the films on YouTube.
Our main summary film featuring edited highlights from the day – 32 minutes
Raymond Young – A personal perspective on how the community based housing association movement began – 37 minutes
Prof. Kim McKee – Summary of research charting the role of women in the early community based HAs – 8 minutes
Anna Stuart MBE – Anna’s key memories of helping establish what is now Cassiltoun HA in the 1980s – 9 minutes
Irene McInnes – Irene looks back to her involvement on the Committee of Reidvale HA – 13 minutes
Jim Hastie – Jim remembers absent friends who played an instrumental role in the early CBHAs – 12 minutes