Concerns have been raised over the continued slowdown of private sector house building in Scotland.

New figures from the Scottish Government revealed there were 14% fewer private sector starts in the nine months to the end of September 2016 than in the same period last year.

Gordon Nelson, Director of the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) in Scotland, said while the first nine months of 2016 showed an increase in starts across housing associations and local authorities, the FMB wants both council and housing association builds to be adding to private sector supply.

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"Scotland was the only part of the UK to see a fall in the number of new homes completed in 2015/16 compared to 2014/15," he said.

"To reverse that and begin to fully meet Scotland's housing need, we need to see all sectors building many more homes than they currently are."

"The Government needs to look at how it can address this weakness in the market. Crucial to this will be how it can enable small and medium-sized (SME) house builders to play a greater role in the housing market and boost their output of new homes.

"The Government took an important step towards doing this in its survey of Scottish SME house builders last year. The responses showed that there are significant barriers facing these firms, the most important of which is access to finance. Research by the FMB also shows that small house builders face difficulties getting planning permission for small sites and this results in limited opportunities for small scale development. Both industry and Government now need to work together to find ways of addressing these challenges in order to ensure that the private sector is working."

(LM/MH)