£100 million-plus affordable housing windfall for councils

Angus and Aberdeenshire Councils will receive more than £100 million over the next three years as part of Scottish Government drive to stimulate investment in affordable housing.

Details have been confirmed of funding allocations for each Scottish local authority, with the Angus support revealing a three-year breakdown of £7.511m for 2018/19, rising to £8.497m in 2019-20 and £9.066m in 2020-21.

Aberdeenshire will receive £25.313m in 2018/19, £28.638m in 2019-20 and £30.554m in 2020-21.

The move is designed to help local authorities and housebuilders plan their investment and provide certainty on the amount of funding available until 2021.

Housing minister Kevin Stewart said the money was coming forward to support the commitment of delivering 50,000 affordable homes by 2021.

He said: “We are ensuring that Angus and Aberdeenshire have homes that are highquality, efficient and affordable.

“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.”

Angus Council currently has a number of affordable housing projects, including the £5.6m redevelopment of Forfar’s former Chapelpark school.