News / SIC cash clears way for 63 new homes
HJALTLAND Housing Association hopes to start building 63 houses across Shetland in the next few weeks after the local council agreed the final part of a funding package on Wednesday.
Long anticipated construction work on new properties in Tingwall, Brae and Lerwick should commence by May after councillors agreed to extend a bridging finance deal for an extra year and a few hundred thousand pounds.
A year ago Shetland Islands Council agreed to invest £3.5 million from its oil reserves to help Hjaltland build a total of 75 houses at a cost of £11.2 million, the rest of the cash coming from the Scottish government and private finance.
However the government refused funding for 12 homes in Lerwick’s Pegasus Place, leaving just three projects including 40 houses at Strand, Tingwall, eight new homes in Ladies Mire, Brae, and 15 flats on the former North Star cinema site on Harbour Street, Lerwick.
Hjaltland hopes to be allowed to go ahead with the Pegasus Place project next year and is also eyeing up the SIC’s current housing department building on Market Street, behind the North Star site, for future development to help meet the huge demand for housing in the town.
Chief executive Bryan Leask said the projects had been in the pipeline for a long time but could not have gone ahead until the council agreed the final stage of the bridging loan.
Mr Leask said the collaboration between the association and the council meant that Shetland was ahead of other parts of Scotland as far as building new social housing.
“For us to be able to develop houses and maintain affordable rents we have to keep our costs down and one of our big costs is going to a bank for a bridging loan,” he said.
“This additional funding is relatively small, but if it had not been approved we would not have been able to start on site with any of the projects.
“The way government is going we have to look at other ways of working than just asking them for money.
“Having spoken to other associations they are not having as good a relationship with their local council as we are, which means we have one of the biggest housing programmes in the highlands and islands if not most of Scotland.”
Tingwall timber frame housing specialists E&H Building Contractors already have a design and build contract for the 40 houses at Strand, which they hope to complete within two years.
Tenders for the two projects in Lerwick and Brae will go out next week and are expected to take up to 21 months and 12 months respectively.
This will be Hjaltland’s busiest year since 2005/6 when they erected 90 properties using government cash. Since then they have averaged between 30 and 40 new houses a year.
There are around 1,000 people on the waiting list for a council or housing association home, predominantly in Lerwick.
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