‘New’ money is used for second-hand sites
Delays to housing projects are blamed
Grant funding which was to have been spent on building new affordable homes has had to be used to buy second-hand properties.
In May the Observer revealed that Stirling Council housing officials had failed to spend more than £3million available to the authority to build new homes.
While the Scottish Government agreed to divert some of the unspent SHIP (Strategic Housing Investment Programme) monies from the new-build programme to acquire second-hand properties, the final position still resulted in a £432,000 underspend.
Officers had blamed unforeseen delays in some major projects – in Raploch and at Claish Farm in Callander – for the underspend.
The council’s environment and housing committee was last Thursday told both projects were still on hold and while some of the money had been used for other projects, it was likely there would still be an underspend.
A report by housing officials stated: “The council and Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) collectively expect to draw down £8.725million of the total grant of £9.677millon, with £952,000 slippage mainly due to the delays at Raploch.
“The council now expects to draw down £3.087million of its £3.85million allocation. This £763,000 slippage, caused by delays at Raploch, has been partially offset by the planned acquisition of up to 40 additional second-hand properties.”
Head of housing Lorna Cameron told the committee that 22 second-hand properties had been bought so far, with the figure expected to rise to 30 within weeks.
She added: “There is certainly a lot less slippage than there was last year and if Raploch comes on in the next couple of weeks that will be significant. The other big site is Claish Farm in Callander which we hoped would start in October and will now be the end of this month. Once signed, both can spend their allocation pretty quickly.
“At the moment we are estimating we won’t make the full amount. Ideally we can continue with our second hand purchasing and speaking to contractors about off-the-shelf properties but at the moment that’s what we are anticipating.”
Housing officials said “enormous progress” had been made in the last seven to eight months but the Raploch project had been complicated, with a lot of sites and also soil remediation causing a challenge. Construction contracts, however, were expected to be signed for work to begin over the next two weeks.
SNP councillor Alasdair Macpherson said, however: “It’s disappointing to be totally honestly. Buying second-hand properties impacts the local market so
I’ve never been a fan of that. I hear the reasons for it but it just concerns me going forward when I see the projected sums. If we don’t spend it we don’t get it. This is not a good news story for us.”
Ms Cameron said: “We have a further allocation for another £10million for next year. These are our two biggest sites and because of significant delays they were always going to have an impact.
“On second-hand properties, it’s a good way, for example, if we own three flats in a block and the owner of the fourth wants to sell then we have control of the whole block. It has also really helped us to reduce our underspend.”
Committee chair Councillor Jim Thomson said: “The point is, we want to be building new houses and the delays in Raploch have caused issues, although SEPA quite rightly had no choice but to deal with contaminated land.”
In March this year there were 2893 people on the council waiting list for homes, including more than 400 disabled applicants, and 263 applications on the homeless list.
Buying secondhand properties impacts the local market so I’ve never been a fan of that Cllr Alasdair Macpherson