In news that will further assist the construction industry in the UK, the Scottish government has announced £200m of funding for house building in Scotland, which it estimates will support 6,500 jobs in the next year alone.

Scotland’s housing minister Margaret Burgess is meeting with housing leaders this week to start the process of creating a five year strategy to deliver the requisite number of houses, including thousands of new affordable homes.

Burgess said: “We want to make sure that everyone in Scotland has access to good quality housing that meets their needs,” she said. “Providing social rented homes, safeguarding jobs, helping to finance infrastructure, and supporting the construction industry to build for both private and public markets is a top priority for the Scottish government.

“We are taking action to increase the supply of affordable housing - in fact we have boosted housing supply budgets by investing £1.7 billion in affordable housing over the lifetime of this Parliament. Through our partners in councils and housing associations, we have now delivered more than 21,000 affordable homes and are two-thirds of the way towards our target of 30,000.”

Whilst the economy is still challenging for both the Scottish and UK-wide government, however Scotland’s house building rate is still higher per head than it is in other parts of the UK.

“We have delivered over 4,000 new council houses since 2009 and are committed to preserving Scotland’s social housing stock by abolishing the Right to Buy, which will protect up to 15,500 social houses from sale and safeguard social housing for future generations,” she said.

With most of the UK's house builders working throughout the country, positive moves in Scotland are likely to act as a further cataclyst to stimulate housebuilding throughout the rest of the UK.