The Scottish Government’s new £30 million Small Developers Scheme, which will form part of Help to Buy (Scotland), will help increase growth in the small house building sector, according to the Federation of Master Builders (FMB).
Gordon Nelson, Director of FMB Scotland, said: “Like the Scottish Government, we want Help to Buy (Scotland) to stimulate sales of new homes across both urban and rural Scotland, thereby helping more people across the whole of Scotland to buy new homes. This is only achievable with the participation of smaller local building firms and we therefore welcome the move to ring-fence £30 million specifically for buyers who want a new property built by one of these companies.”
“I am hopeful that many small and medium-sized (SME) house builders in Scotland which are known and trusted in their communities will now be able to benefit from this additional funding. Over the past twenty or thirty years we have seen a decline in the number of new homes built by smaller firms and this sort of initiative could help reverse the trend.”
“It’s essential now that the Scottish Government ensures the scheme is as accessible as possible by limiting the amount of bureaucracy involved for those small firms which want to register. One of the greatest barriers to engagement of small firms in government schemes is the bureaucracy involved so the process must be as simple and straightforward as possible.”