THE Scottish Government is providing another £25 million for a scheme aimed at increasing the supply of affordable homes.
The Charitable Bond prog-ramme provides loans to councils and housing associations, with the interest earned then re-invested as grants into the social rented sector, further increasing housing supply.
The Scottish Government had previously committed to provide up to £80m through the initiative in 2022-23, but ministers have now increasing that to £105m.
Housing Secretary Shona Robison said: “I’m pleased to be increasing our investment in the innovative Charitable Bond programme, providing funding to social landlords so they can deliver affordable homes to benefit the people in their communities.
"We want everyone to have a warm, safe, affordable home that meets their needs, and by committing additional funding to the programme, we are taking yet another step towards our target of delivering 110,000 affordable homes by 2032.”
Kingdom Housing Association will be among the organisations to benefit, receiving loan cash that will help it provide more than 300 homes in east-central Scotland for mid-market and social rent.
The association’s executive director of finance, Ken Tudhope, said: “The simple nature of the loans provides us with a unique source of unsecured funding that gives flexibility to our business and supports our development plans.
“This will be the fourth loan we’ve taken through the programme and we plan to utilise the funds across 34 individual construction projects as part of our programme to deliver more than 2000 much-needed affordable homes in the next five years.”
