A north-east housing group has secured a £7.5million grant to help build hundreds of new homes across the region before 2021.
Aberdeenshire Housing Partnership, established in 1999, is pushing to increase social and affordable housing provision to ease the crisis facing Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and Moray.
In Aberdeenshire, the waiting list for council houses has passed 10,000 applicants.
But now, AHP has struck a multi-million-pound finance deal with Bank of Scotland to help fund the construction of up to 350 new houses in the next five years.
The group is made up of housing organisations in all three areas and currently owns or manages 1,500 properties.
AHP’s chief executive Colin Hawkins said the new deal, along with a £24million funding package already in place with the bank, would “support our development plans over the next five years”.
He added: “We have developed our future business plan with the meaningful involvement of our tenants association who strongly support our aims to help increase the provision of high-quality, affordable housing in north-east Scotland, benefiting the lives of our current and future tenants.”
Mr Hawkins said: “The bank recognises the contribution we make to our community and how we are planning to enhance this in the coming years.”
Earlier this year, the bank agreed a similar £15million credit arrangement with Clyde Valley Housing Association, which covers parts of Lanarkshire and Dunbartonshire.
Jo-Ann Pepperell from the bank’s housing team said: “AHP is a model example of a modern social housing provider.
“The management team has worked astutely over a number of years to increase housing provision in Aberdeenshire and the north-east of Scotland.”
In a recent poll conducted for Shelter Scotland, it was revealed that 90% of Scots fear it will be harder for the next generation to buy or rent a home than it is today.
The same survey of 1,028 adults across Scotland found that 69% agreed it was harder for them to buy or rent a home now than it was for their parents.
And 87% of respondents agreed that, unless many more new affordable homes were built, the country’s housing problems would never be overcome.