Councillor: 'We need to start building social housing'
The Vice-Chair of the islands' Council has said she hopes the Authority can soon start "putting some bricks on the ground and build more social housing".
In a discussion about the affordable homes element of the Draft Local Plan at yesterday's (October 2nd) Full Council meeting, Cllr Fran Grottick said she thinks social housing for rent is needed for young people.
She told Members: "Every time I read a housing report and it mentions affordable housing, especially for the Isles of Scilly, my heart sinks because what is affordable for most people on their income levels on the islands is absolutely not affordable in terms of buying your own house. Therefore I would like to prioritise and hope that we could move forward with building some units - social housing for rent is I think the way forward for most of our young people.
"I'd like to really hope that the talking will stop soon and we can actually start putting some bricks on the ground and actually build some more social housing.... It’s going to be funding that’s going to be so very difficult because every time we try for some of these funding streams, it seems to me, we fall against the best value. With our freight implications especially, we can’t fulfil most of the criteria for what is defined as best value."
Cllr Grottick said that Senior Manager for Strategic Development Nicola Stinson is looking "very hard at all things" including modular housing and building to first fix, adding: "I even saw a report the other day that suggested we could use shipping containers and some of them did look pretty stunning. So I hope that we’re going to start moving forward on this really soon."
Cllr Ted Moulson had earlier said that he understands the Government is likely to "make announcements about building affordable homes and monies available for that in the very near future".