Moray Council is to suspend council house sales for the next 10 years, it has been revealed.

The decision follows the introduction of new rules which allow local authorities to create their own pressured area designations. It means that the pressured area status will apply to the whole of Moray for a decade under the new Housing (Scotland) Act.

More than half of Moray's council housing stock has been sold to sitting tenants since the right-to-buy legislation was introduced in the 1980s.

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Currently, there are around 3,000 names on the waiting list for housing, and for every council house that becomes available, there is an average of eight applicants.

In a statement, the local authority said it is building new homes but these will not be enough to meet the difference between supply and demand.

Communities committee chairman Councillor Eric McGillivray said the council needed to build more than 420 new homes every year for the next 10 years to meet demand.

He added: "We will not be able to build at that rate which is why we had to look at a blanket pressured area status for the whole of Moray to ensure that the council housing stock that we currently have remains in circulation.

"Where there has already been have pressured area status, it has enabled us to build new houses in those locations in the knowledge that they cannot be bought."

(JP/IT)