Aberdeen council chiefs are poised to launch Scotland’s biggest council house building programme in decades.
The local authority will hold budget talks on Tuesday aiming to shave about £125million off spending over the next five years.
But last night both council co-leaders, Aberdeen Labour’s Jenny Laing and Conservative Douglas Lumsden, announced plans to invest £250million in a council housing scheme with proposals to build 2,000 new homes.
It’s understood the project could be financed through another bond being issued on the stock exchange.
In 2016, the local authority raised £370million for capital projects through a bond issue.
The authority is expected to approve some cost-cutting measures including a 3% hike in council tax. The authority has also confirmed 370 jobs will go.
Last year the nine Aberdeen Labour councillors were suspended from the national party for forming an alliance with the Tories. The group has been told councillors have a chance to stay in the party if an “anti-austerity” budget is passed on Tuesday,
Council co-leader Jenny Laing will instruct the director of resources to bring forward business cases on Tuesday to tackle the waiting list with more than 8,000 people still to be placed in a council home.
She said: “In Aberdeen Labour’s manifesto we made a promise to deliver 2,000 council houses to tackle the chronic shortages in affordable accommodation and we will not deviate from that pledge.
“Because of Nicola Sturgeon’s savage cuts to council budgets we have been forced to be innovative in our thinking.
“Local authorities all over Scotland are having to abandon major infrastructure projects because of the £1billion wiped from the local government settlement over the past five years. The shortage in council housing is one of the biggest scandals in Scotland.“
Co-leader Douglas Lumsden added: “I am proud that this £250 million commitment will provide new one, two, three and four-bedroom homes right across Aberdeen.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said that Mrs Laing’s comments were “completely false” adding that Holyrood had provided 50,000 affordable homes and stressed that there had been no cuts in the local authority finance settlement.
Aberdeen’s SNP group leader Stephen Flynn said: “The fact that we’re almost a year into this administration and not a single piece of ground work, in terms of risks or viability, has even been considered highlights that this is just an attempt to appease Labour’s national leadership.”