Allia has secured a new £25 million bond contract from the Scottish Government to provide loans and grants to Scottish housing associations.

To date, the programme has provided medium-term unsecured loans for nine housing associations around the country, including Kingdom Housing Association in Fife and Hjaltland Housing Association in Shetland.

Since 2014, the Government has invested nearly £70m in bonds to support the development of 'affordable' housing. Overall, these loans will provide more than 900 new 'affordable' homes across the country.

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Housing Minister Kevin Stewart said: "Innovative financing schemes such as charitable bonds play a major role in helping us to deliver our five-year commitment to provide at least 50,000 affordable homes during the lifetime of this Parliament.

"Our investment of a further £25m this year in Allia's bond programme is expected to provide around £18m in unsecured loan finance for Scottish housing associations and up to £7m in grant funding for the development of new social housing."

Phil Caroe, Director of Social Finance at Allia, said: "Allia is delighted to secure another £25m to continue our lending programme in Scotland. Our unsecured loans are helping to fund the development of new affordable homes across the country, and we look forward to working with more housing associations and supporting them with this new funding."

(LM/MH)