Responding to today’s announcement that the UK Government wants to see a million homes built across England by 2020 in order to tackle the housing crisis there, Homes for Scotland Chief Executive Philip Hogg (right) said:

“With the number of new homes built north of the border having fallen by 40% since 2007, Scotland faces the same challenges as those being highlighted in England today.  As numerous reports have identified, hundreds of thousands of new homes are needed here over the next twenty years to meet the diverse housing needs of our growing population.

“Achieving this, however, requires the necessary support to be in place to increase delivery across all tenures. Crucial, for example, is an efficient and responsive planning system which facilitates housing delivery.  Whilst this is being considered by the recently announced independent panel undertaking a ‘root and branch’ review, time really is of the essence in this regard.

“We also still await the detail on the £195m successor to the hugely successful Help to Buy (Scotland) shared equity scheme which is essential to builders’ forward planning and investment decision-making.”