A formal agreement between Fife Council and the Fife Housing Association Alliance has been renewed for the next five years, allowing the partnership to continue to deliver affordable housing across the region.

The Fife Housing Association Alliance is a collaborative working arrangement between the four housing associations based in Fife: Kingdom Group, Glen Housing Association, Ore Valley Group and Fife Housing Group.

The council has, for over ten years, worked in formal partnership with the members of the Alliance to deliver the Strategic Housing Investment Plan (SHIP) for Fife.

Convener of the community and housing services committee, Cllr Judy Hamilton, said: “Working with local housing partners has proved extremely effective in delivering new affordable housing for Fife. The Alliance members have considerable development experience and have also made significant contributions to large scale regeneration programmes at Abbeyview, Kincardine and Inverkeithing and have worked collaboratively with the council as it developed its own new build programme.

“The Alliance members have been key delivery partners in the recently completed Phase 2 Affordable Housing Programme, contributing over 800 houses to the overall target of 2700, with the additional community benefits of apprenticeships and jobs.

“It’s exciting that a third phase of the council’s affordable housing programme has been agreed with a commitment to an additional 3500 affordable new homes by 2022. This is great news for those that are homeless, local people looking for affordable rental housing or low cost homeownership as well as and for the local economy and jobs.”

Bill Banks, chief executive at Kingdom Housing Association, added: “The Fife Alliance members have worked closely together over many years and we are very pleased to be able to demonstrate the aims and objectives are being achieved.

“The Alliance recognises the good performance would have been difficult without the good working partnership arrangements between the Alliance and Fife Council, along with the support provided from the Scottish Government. The main objective is to provide high quality housing, to meet Fife’s growing housing needs, and we would hope to continue meeting this objective in the future.”