Highland council has unveiled a five-year stock retention plan that will see £62m spent on maintenance and improvements.
The council is to access the funds initially through Scotland's borrowing consent system, and later under the prudential borrowing regime expected to be introduced by April 2004.

Despite housing debt of roughly £18m, the council predicts its ability to borrow will be unaffected by the regime change.

The council is also set to implement a wide-scale cost-cutting programme, which will follow best value reviews of its repair and maintenance service, empty homes strategy and rent arrears system.

The announcement comes less than 18 months after the council, which has 16,500 properties, decided to drop plans for stock transfer.

As one of the first councils in Scotland to carry out a stock options appraisal, Highland concluded in 1999 that large-scale transfer was the best means of securing housing investment.

However, subsequent research – based on five-year rather than 30-year and longer projections – indicated that the council could afford to retain its stock.

David Goldie, Highland council's head of housing strategy, said that, despite the announcement, small-scale partial transfers would remain an option where linked to area regeneration.

"There are no active plans at the moment, but we would be looking for a rule change in relation to debt write-off for partial transfer to make things easier if we were to pursue this in future," said Goldie.

Tenants are to be consulted on the details of the new business plan, which includes rent increases pegged at inflation plus 1%.

Replies to the consultation are due by the end of this month.

Source

Housing Today