East Lothian Council is set to continue its ambitious new house-building project into 2012 after planned works were approved by Cabinet at a meeting on Tuesday.

Councillors heard that 170 new homes had been completed over the last year – despite the extreme winter weather, at a cost of just over £16 million. Next year, 156 new homes should be completed, at a cost of £16 million.

As in 2010/11, next year’s homes will be built using funds from the Council’s budget and from the Scottish Government.

Homes completed this year were: 35 at Brierbush Road, Macmerry; 88 at Brunt Court, Dunbar; 14 at Balfour Square, Tranent; eight at Middleshot Square, Prestonpans; 13 at Baxters Neuk, Tranent and 12 at Links Avenue, Musselburgh.

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New homes will be completed in 2011/12 at: Whitecraig Avenue, Whitecraig; Muirpark Wynd, Tranent; North High Street, Musselburgh; Labour Club site, Tranent; High Street, Prestonpans.

Stuart Currie, Cabinet Member for Housing and Community Safety, said: "East Lothian is understandably a very popular place to live. Unfortunately, we have a shortage of affordable homes for rent and we have many, many more people on our housing waiting list than we have properties becoming available. So, we need to continue building new homes as one way of addressing this issue.

"I am pleased that we secured just over £7 million through the Scottish Government Incentivising New House Building subsidy. £2.95 million of this was used in 2010/11 and we will be using £1.35 million next year. In addition, we are putting together a bid for a further £6.4 million from a new government scheme, which has invited competitive bids for funding. We will await the outcome of this bid with interest. We will continue to invest in our house building scheme in future years so that we can have some of the best social housing in Scotland – right here in East Lothian.”

(GK)