News / SIC upbeat after housing debt talks
A TOP level delegation from Shetland Islands Council is “quite upbeat” after a meeting with the UK government’s chief secretary to the treasury Danny Alexander to resolve Shetland’s historic housing debt once and for all.
Speaking from London on Thursday afternoon, SIC convener Malcolm Bell said he was optimistic a deal to remove the £40 million debt could be brokered between Westminster, Holyrood and the SIC next year.
He said Alexander was the highest ranking government minister any SIC delegation had met on the issue over the years.
“It was clear that the minister was genuinely engaging with the substance of the points we raised with him,” Bell said.
“The fact that he now has undertaken to go back to the Scottish government and make clear the scale of the problem this issue is causing is to be welcomed.
“While the legal position of the UK Treasury is uncertain, the minister undertook to look again at what help might be available, and work with all sides to help find a resolution.”
He said the massive debt incurred during the oil construction era to house workers building Sullom Voe terminal as a “millstone around our neck” that prevents the council to invest in building more council houses.
As previous governments have failed to honour a promise to repay the debt, council house tenants in Shetland today pay some of the highest social housing rents in the country.
The meeting was arranged by northern isles MP Alistair Carmichael after the Scottish government brought an end to housing support grant (HSG), which pays the interest on the debt.
Carmichael, a member of the UK coalition government himself, said his Liberal Democrat colleague had given a commitment to work with the council to find a way forward.
“This was a positive meeting. In a post-devolutionary world, the Treasury may be restricted in terms of a direct intervention, but there is a genuine political understanding of the problem and the difficulties that this debt is causing for Shetland.
“The council clearly has a strong case to make here, and the convenor and other councillors put their points across forcefully. I don’t think any of the delegation went into the meeting expecting to leave with a cheque.”
SIC convener Malcolm Bell, political leader Gary Robinson, social services chair Cecil Smith and vice chair Allison Duncan, chief executive Mark Boden and housing executive manager Anita Jamieson had all travelled to London for the meeting.
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