News article 5/09/2012

(Issued 5 September 2012) 

Responding to the Cabinet changes announced today, home building industry body Homes for Scotland said that only by keeping housing at the top of the political agenda could the Scottish Government achieve its ambitions across a whole range of policy areas.

Chief Executive Philip Hogg said:

“Whether in terms of helping to meet housing need, creating vital jobs, maintaining skills, meeting climate change targets or tackling fuel poverty, no other industry has the potential to help the Scottish Government achieve so much so effectively.

“But with a total of only 15,000 new homes built last year, you need to go back to 1946 to find a time when we were building less. This is despite the facts that our population is at its highest ever level and the annual increase in new households is projected to be more than 21,000 over coming years.

“Having announced a target to build 35,000 new homes each year by the middle of this decade back in 2007, Nicola Sturgeon already has a strong appreciation of the need for more new homes. However, I hope that her heavy responsibilities for Government Strategy and the Constitution will not divert her from the important tasks of ensuring more homes are built and more jobs created.

“We need bold, brave, urgent action to arrest the decline in new homes and address Scotland’s housing crisis.

“Representing a membership which builds 95% of new homes for sale as well as a significant proportion of affordable housing, I therefore look forward to a positive and constructive dialogue with both Nicola Sturgeon and new Housing Minister Margaret Burgess, who has encouragingly raised questions on unemployment, fuel poverty and the economy in the Scottish Parliament. We wish to work closely with her to deliver significant investment from the home building industry to help address these issues as well as the many others associated with her new portfolio.”