North East MSP, Nanette Milne has hit out at the SNP Scottish Government housing policy and called for Housing Associations and Councils to take into account local connections when deciding on housing applications.
She said, “Under current SNP legislation for housing applications, social landlords cannot take into account the length of time for which an applicant has lived in the area.
“Scottish Conservatives want to see social landlords, including Councils, given more powers to take into account local connections when deciding on housing applications and transfer requests.
“This is a particular concern in rural areas like the communities in the North East. Indeed, one of the issues raised with me time and again are the difficulties people face when wanting to apply for a house within their own community, only to find that they are so far down the housing list that this is impossible.
“The effect of this is to break up communities, to force young people from the communities that they have grown up in and, in the long run, to increase the average age of people living in more remote areas, which has an obvious impact on the provision of services to those communities.
“We need to do everything we can to keep rural communities together and to support families who want to move house within their community, and I believe that changes to the allocation rules would be of benefit to rural areas like the North East.”