£25m to kick-start house building

james73 · £25m to kick-start house building

£25m to kick-start house building

Scots local authorities will be given a £25m package to build new council houses
over the next three years.

Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon made the announcement as she
addressed the SNP spring conference.

She said, with homelessness on the rise, housing was one of the biggest
challenges facing Scotland.

As her party prepared to enter a second year of power at Holyrood, Ms
Sturgeon said the government had so far built a solid record of achievement.

Ms Sturgeon also said ministers were working on a pilot programme of
free health screening for amateur athletes, following the death of
Motherwell captain Phil O'Donnell from heart failure during a match in
December.

She told a packed conference hall in Edinburgh that the Scottish Government's
goal to build 35,000 new houses every year by 2015 would need "all hands
on deck" to be met.

And she claimed the previous Labour/Liberal Democrat government had
presided over the building of just six council houses in four years.

The deputy SNP leader said councils had a big role to play in house
building, along with housing associations and private developers.

"As we move now into our second year of government, it is vital that we
take on the big challenges facing our country," she told delegates, some of
whom had to stand in the aisles of the Herriot Watt University auditorium.

"There's no doubt that one of the biggest of these challenges is housing. In
the last 10 years, homelessness in Scotland has been on the rise."

Ms Sturgeon said the £25m injection would kick-start a new generation of
council homes, while confirming the government's commitment to ending
right to buy for newly built social housing.

James H