West Lothian Council to use £2 million grant to accelerate repairs and build social housing

dailyrecord.co.uk:

An emergency £2m grant to help tackle homelessness is to be used by West Lothian Council to accelerate home repairs and build new houses.A five year national programme to tackle homelessness is reaching an end - with homeless figures rising across Scotland.In West Lothian those figures have been fuelled not only by the cost of living crisis and changing housing market, but by successive changes in housing law.Now the council is preparing to “reset” its plans to tackle homelessness with fresh ideas.Sarah Kelly, Housing Needs Manager, told a meeting of the council’s Executive: “The supply pressures that faced West Lothian have not reduced over the duration of the Rapid Rehousing Transition Programme (RRTP) and demand still far outstrips supply by over 300%.”In November additional grant funding of £2.2 million was confirmed for this financial year by the Scottish Government via the Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP) to address temporary accommodation pressures, with a focus on acquisitions and bringing void properties back into use.The funding must be spent this financial year, with properties being available for let by 31 March.The bulk of this money, £812,000, will be spent on six new build homes at Deans South in Livingston.

This funding will be drawn down by Wheatley Homes as part of the Deans South project and the council will receive nominations for these.Of the extra funding, £400,000 will be used to accelerate bringing long term and high cost mainstream empty homes, known as “voids”, back into use.

This will bring an additional 50 void homes back into use.A further £360,000 will cover the purchase planned for this year of nine buy back properties, while £430,000 will allow the council to buy back 10 more by