Nicola Sturgeon pledges 50,000 affordable homes for Scotland

She says the £3bn plan will be affordable and ambitious

The party says housing will be a big issue during the campaign (Getty Images)

Scotland should target building 50,000 affordable homes during the next four-year parliament, the country’s First Minister has said.

Nicola Sturgeon told the Scottish National Party’s annual conference in Aberdeen that her party would ramp up housebuilding if it won next year’s Scottish Parliament elections.

“Making sure that everyone has a safe, warm and affordable home is central to our government’s drive to make this country fairer and more prosperous,” she said in her keynote speech.

“Our plans must be affordable. But they must also be ambitious.

“I am therefore announcing today a bold new commitment. If we are re-elected next May, our target in the next parliament will be to build at least 50,000 new affordable homes.”

Ms Sturgeon said the commitment would be worth £3bn.

The SNP’s current housing target is 30,000 homes during this current parliament – a figure Ms Sturgeon claimed the Scottish Government was on track to meet.

She also celebrated the party’s scrapping of the Right To Buy policy, which she said would “safeguard social housing for the future”.

Last month the Scottish Government announced it would introduce rent control powers to limit steep rising in the cost of housing.

The policy, included in the party’s programme for government in the final year before the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections, would target “rent pressure areas” and come alongside a new model tenancy and improved security of tenure.

According to Scottish Government statistics there were 1,208 new council houses started in previous financial year ,with 1,157 completed. The number of housing starts was up 3 per cent in the same period.