Multi-million pound investment in affordable housing for Aberdeen city and shire

More than £137 million is being allocated to Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeenshire Council in a major Scottish Government commitment to stimulate investment in affordable housing.

For the first time, details have been confirmed of each local authority’s full funding allocation for affordable housing over the next three years.

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

In 2018-19, £25.313 million will be allocated in grant funding to Aberdeenshire Council – rising to £28.638 million in 2019-20 and £30.554 million in 2020-21.

£16.027 million will be allocated in grant funding to Aberdeen City Council – rising to £18.133 million in 2019-20 and £19.346 million in 2020-21.

Announcing the funding, Housing Minister Kevin Stewart said this would support the government’s ambitious commitment of delivering 50,000 affordable homes by 2021.

He said: “We are ensuring that Aberdeenshire 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.