News / Spat over housing debt
The Scottish Government must “put their money where their mouth is” and come up with a £10 million contribution towards Shetland’s historic housing debt, according to Alistair Carmichael.
The northern isles MP’s comments came following a pledge of £10 million from the UK coalition, announced in the Treasury’s autumn statement last Thursday.
In response the SNP government said it had already allocated £5.9 million for new affordable housing up to 2015 and was looking at further housing-related funding.
It also referred to the cash it pledged in July towards the repair of Sumburgh Airport’s runway.
But a senior SIC source said that was “irrelevant” to its plea for the £40 million housing debt to be written off.
That prompted Carmichael to accuse the Holyrood administration of failing to match Westminster’s commitment.
At Wednesday’s full council meeting SIC leader Gary Robinson said the deal the council was seeking would see the Scottish Government cough up £10 million towards new housing in the isles from 2016 to 2018.
The local authority would write off a further £10 million of the debt from its reserves and would “externalise” the remainder to reduce its interest payments.
Robinson said he would be pursuing more talks with the Scottish Government, which has indicated it wants to set up a further tripartite meeting with the council and Westminster.
Carmichael said: “The refusal of the Scottish Government to take their share of the heavy lifting in dealing with Shetland’s historic housing debt is nothing less than a disgrace.
“They conveniently forget that this is a crisis of their construction. They ignore the fact that money still goes from the Treasury to the Scottish Government to service this debt.”
He added: “The Westminster government has realised the exceptional circumstances facing the SIC and the Scottish Government should now do the same.
“They have never been short of an opinion on this. It is now time for them to put their money where their mouth is.”
A Scottish Government spokesman had welcomed last week’s announcement from Westminster, saying it amounted to a “recognition that it is their issue to resolve and we will continue our productive discussions with Shetland”.
There was some potentially good news for council house tenants at Wednesday’s SIC meeting.
Councillors agreed the 2014/15 budget, which includes a five per cent rent rise for tenants.
But it is hoped that a further five per cent increase planned for 2015/16 may not need to be pushed through.
Robinson said that, following Westminster’s announcement of funding to alleviate the housing debt, “I would hope that we’d be in a better position next year as regards rent increases”.
Meanwhile housing chief Anita Jamieson presented the findings of a survey of tenants showing 62 per cent felt current rents were affordable.
But 59 per cent felt a 10 per cent rise over two years would tip it into being unaffordable.
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