£105 million for affordable homes in Scotland

The Scottish Government has announced £105 million of funding for the Charitable Bond scheme to increase the number of affordable homes in Scotland.

The scheme provides loans to social landlords, the interest on which is then reinvested into the social rented sector as grants.

£80 million has already been committed in this financial year, with another £25 million announced today.

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.”

A loan will enable Kingdom Housing Association to deliver more than 300 homes in east central Scotland for mid-market and social rent.

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.”

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