HUB South West is celebrating a major milestone with the completion of its 500th home since it diversified into housebuilding just over four years ago.
The achievement was marked by a gathering of the hub team, including CEO Michael Ross and chairman Dr Willie Mackie, at the new terraced town house in Irvine, part of the Towerlands project for North Ayrshire Council which is being built by Ashleigh Construction.
It is the seventh large social housing development for the council, which was the first local authority to come on board with hub South West in social housing provision, and is one of 21 sites now handed over, under construction or under development, worth more than £205 million.
The celebration was enhanced by the revelation that the public-private partnership will also reach financial close on its 1,000th house within the next few months.
Michael Ross said, “With this milestone, the hub’s territory is seeing the results of its long-term and mutually beneficial partnerships, backed by trusting relationships, with local authority participants in south west Scotland. By focusing on our clients and offering a model which combines high quality, value for money and sustainability with community investment, social value, employability, our supply chain events such as Build Lanarkshire and Build Ayrshire and links to local colleges, we are able to drive forward a programme which is an important asset to the area.
“Scotland has an ongoing housing crisis and, as a development partner of local authorities, hub South West can create outputs – and get units built – to meet that crisis. As our participants provide pipelines of work, we can pass these down to businesses in the local supply chain who are keen to access future works to enable them also to grow and invest.”
hub South West revealed it is now looking to expand its social housing activities beyond its local authority participants towards Registered Social Landlords (RSLs), of whom there are some 160 in Scotland and whom the hub plans to invite into its ongoing Housing Forums.
Dr Mackie said, “RSLs such as housing associations are a major element of social housing provision in Scotland and the way the hub creates community partnerships committed to improving public services and employment opportunities across South West Scotland would be particularly applicable to them. With the continuing progression and improvement of our partnership working, stakeholder consultation and sharing of design and build expertise, we can assist RSLs to meet Scottish Government criteria for the best value for money.”
