Gibson welcomes funding for council housing in Orkney

For immediate release

01/07/2010

Highlands and Islands SNP MSP Rob Gibson has welcomed an announcement from the First Minister which will see further new council housing in Orkney.

Building on last year's initial two rounds of Scottish Government 'kick-start' funding, today's announcement means a total of £300,000 will be made available to build 10 new council houses in Finstown.

The total joint package from the Scottish Government and Local authority means that there £2million worth of funding has been made available to create 78 new units shared between, Kirkwall, Andersquoy, Finstown, Stromness, Dounby and Orphir.

Mr Gibson said…

"This announcement will make a real and positive difference to the housing situation on Orkney. When the Liberal Democrats and Labour were in power in Scotland they managed to build a total 6 council houses (all of which were in Shetland). For them it just was not a priority"

"So the new approach from the SNP Government (working with local authorities) which will see many more houses built in Orkney and the rest of Scotland is a refreshing change."

"This announcement will not only provide more families with a safe and secure roof over their heads, but it will also delivers another timely boost to the construction industry during the time of a recession. It is a win win situation, there will be many related trades which will also benefit from this funding."

ENDS

NOTE

Today’s Round 3 announcement takes to £80 million the amount of Scottish Government funding to incentivise council house building. Local authorities were invited to apply for funding for specific council housing projects and the individual allocations announced today were agreed by the Scottish Government and Convention of Scottish Local Authorities based on criteria including housing need, affordability and the readiness of councils to take forward projects in the near future.

The allocations from the Scottish Government, and number of units supported, in Orkney are:

Round 1 & 2:Andersquoy, Kirkwall and Finstown, Stromness, Dounby & Orphir - £1.7 million, 68 units

Round 3 : Finstown - £300,000, 10 units