£78.7m aid to build affordable houses
Funding over three years
South Lanarkshire Council has been handed £78.7 million over the next three years to build affordable housing.
The cash, which is coming from the Scottish Government, is to help local authorities and house-builders plan their investment and provide certainty on the amount of funding available until 2021.
In 2018/19, £23.592 million will be allocated in grant funding to South Lanarkshire Council – rising to £26.690 million in 2019/20 and £28.476 million in 2020/21.
Housing minister Kevin Stewart said: “We are ensuring that South Lanarkshire has homes that are high-quality, efficient and affordable.
“Today, we are announcing to local authorities how much money they’ll have to invest in affordable housing until the end of this parliament. It means they can plan these new affordable homes now with the certainty that the funding will increase year-on-year.
“This is also an important signal to the house-building sector in Scotland and demonstrates our commitment to the industry and the estimated 14,000 jobs our affordable housing supply programme supports each year.”
South Lanarkshire Council executive director of housing and technical resources, Daniel Lowe said: “The council welcomes the Scottish Government’s commitment to an increased three year grant funding allocation of £78.7 million for affordable housing investment in South Lanarkshire.
“The council has a commitment to deliver 1,000 new council homes by March 2021.
“Work is currently ongoing towards meeting this target with 50 new homes currently being constructed and a further 210 programmed to commence during the course of 2017 and early 2018. The remainder of the programme will see new homes being built across all housing market areas in South Lanarkshire.
“As well as helping achieve this ambitious council house new build target, this increased funding commitment will enable developing housing association partners accelerate priority affordable housing projects across South Lanarkshire.”