Last year, Argyll and Bute Council became the first local authority to declare a housing emergency and, shortly afterwards, it hosted a Housing Emergency Summit with over 90 key stakeholders to identify and prioritise a range of actions and potential solutions to address the issue.

Together they produced a Housing Summit Action Plan to outline the next steps. Yesterday councillors approved these during a meeting of the environment, development and infrastructure committee.

The council and its partners will deliver the actions over five years. Many of these are already underway and address four priority categories:

• Enable the delivery of more market homes in Argyll and Bute
• Enable the delivery of more affordable homes in Argyll and Bute
• Enable the delivery of more homes for Argyll and Bute’s workforce
• Make the best use of existing homes in Argyll and Bute

The Housing Summit Action Plan will go forward to the full council later this year for inclusion in the updated Local Housing Strategy Action Programme.