WIREDGOV

Investment worth £105 million has been agreed to boost the number of affordable homes in Scotland.

The Charitable Bond programme provides loans to social landlords, with the interest then reinvested as grants into the social rented sector, further increasing housing supply.

The Scottish Government had previously committed to provide up to £80 million through the programme in this financial year, and today’s announcement marks an additional investment of £25 million. This is on top of the £260 million investment in affordable housing delivered by the programme since 2014.

Kingdom Housing Association will be among the organisations to benefit, with a loan enabling it to deliver more than 300 homes in east central Scotland for mid-market and social rent.

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 Charitable Bond programme, we are taking yet another step towards our target of delivering 110,000 affordable homes by 2032.”

Peter Freer, Director for Scotland at Allia C&C, which delivers the programme on behalf of the Scottish Government, said:

“Following a successful eight-year track record of managing the Charitable Bond programme, the Scottish Government set a more ambitious target of delivering £80 million of investment in the current financial year.

“After just three months we’re delighted to announce that over £100 million has been secured for the social housing sector. These funds will support both large and small borrowers across Scotland to build more, much needed, affordable homes.”

Ken Tudhope, Executive Director of Finance at Kingdom Housing Association, said:

“The Charitable Bond programme has been really valuable for Kingdom Housing Association. 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 over 2,000 much needed affordable homes in the next five years.”

Background

The Charitable Bond programme was relaunched in November. Further information is available on the Allia C&C website.