Highland Council to discuss radical move to prioritise local housing for local people

Highland councillors will debate calls for a change to the housing allocation points to give people in Badenoch and Strathspey a better chance of getting affordable housing.

The motion will be discussed after being added as a late item to the agenda for today’s full Highland Council meeting at Inverness headquarters.

The request is that options for a local housing allocations policy be explored for the strath to ensure local housing need in the area is being met.

Current law requires the needs-based Highland Housing Register to ignore certain factors when selecting tenants for empty houses including how long someone has lived locally.

But councillors in Badenoch and Strathspey want to change that as part of efforts to tackle the lack of affordable housing for locals in what would be a radical move.

Highland Council convener Bill Lobban (Independent) proposed the local housing for local people motion at the latest area committee meeting in Kingussie’s Courthouse and it was unanimously supported by fellow members

Councillor Lobban told the Strathy earlier this month: “For as long as I have been a councillor it has been fairly obvious that local people have difficulty getting to the top of the housing ladder - due to the simply ridiculous national housing register it does not matter where you reside.

“If you have enough points you get higher up the ladder even if you come from outwith the area.

“We need a fit for purpose local housing register that puts local people first and it cannot be beyond our collective wit to devise a simple and effective allocations policy.”

The proposal has now moved to the full council for debate.

A Highland Council spokesperson confirmed: “The council will be asked to consider the motion at its meeting today.

“Should this be agreed, options would be explored which would consider the legal, policy, financial and integrated impacts.

“This is a process that would be followed for any change in policy.”

The council uses a points-based system to allocate social housing with higher scores indicating greater need.

The bid for change came after the latest homelessness figures were presented to the area committee.

They revealed the number of lets in the strath to homeless applicants for the past six months up to the end of March was 95 with just 17 properties going to non-homeless housing list applicants.

The council’s housing allocations policy takes into account existing Housing Acts legislation.

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