Steps to prevent serious shortages of affordable housing in Aberdeenshire have been announced.

Right to Buy has been temporarily suspended for some tenants in 88 letting areas, which have now been designated as 'pressured areas'. This will affect 5,763 tenancies or 56 percent of the social housing stock.

This follows the Communities Minister Stewart Maxwell's decision to approve Aberdeenshire Council's pressured area application and will allow the Council to retain homes for rent for people on low incomes in areas facing social housing pressures aggravated by Right to Buy.

Helping households in these difficult times is a key theme of the Scottish Government's economic recovery plan.

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Mr Maxwell said: "One of this Government's highest priorities is taking action on housing. That is why we have agreed to Aberdeenshire Council's request to suspend Right to Buy to ease the substantial pressures facing affordable housing in these 88 areas.

"We are also committed to introducing legislation to end the right to buy for all new build social housing. Meanwhile our recent announcement of a 25 million pounds support package for local authorities will help to kick start a new generation of council house building in Scotland.

"Aberdeenshire is the tenth local authority to have successfully applied to use the pressured area mechanism and I would ask other councils to consider whether it could be used as a suitable tool for them."

Aberdeenshire Council's Director of Housing and Social Work, Colin Mackenzie, added: "This is tremendous news for Aberdeenshire - our application for Pressured Area Designation was fully supported by our tenant organisations.

"The suspension of the right to buy will assist Aberdeenshire Council to meet its obligations under housing and homeless legislation. This, coupled with the start we have made to build the next generation of high quality council housing, is good news for the 6,800 people on our waiting lists."

(JM)