Housing Strategies

• Local Housing Strategy
• Tenant Participation Strategy
• Homelessness Strategy
• Temporary Accommodation Strategy

Local Housing Strategy

The Housing (Scotland) Act 2001, places a legal duty on every local authority to produce a Local Housing Strategy (LHS).  Moray currently has an Interim LHS 2010-2013 in place (see below).

Work is presently underway to develop a new Moray Local Housing Strategy which will cover the period 2013 – 2018, and will bring the LHS into step with the Moray Development Plan.    The main forum for partnership working on the development of the strategy will be the Housing Strategy Group.  

The Housing Need and Demand Assessment 2011 (HNDA) will form a key evidence base for the Local Housing Strategy and the Local Development Plan.  The Scottish Government appraised the HNDA 2011 as "robust and credible" on 12 September 2011.  The HNDA and its associated documents are available below:

• Housing Need and Demand Assessment Appraisal (1 page, 25 KB)
• Housing Need and Demand Assessment 2011 Executive Summary ( 15 pages, 382 KB)
• Housing Need and Demand Assessment 2011 (171 pages, 2.61 MB)
• Moray Housing Market Partnership Remit- Appendix 1 (3 pages, 24 KB)
• HNDA Appendix 2
• Functional Housing Market Needs - Appendix 3 (8 pages, 139 KB)
• Moray Housing Need and Demand Assessment 2011 - Appendix 4 ( 3 pages, 19 KB)
• Current Housing Need -  Assessment of Data Sources - Appendix 6 (3 pages, 15 KB)
• Housing Affordability Scenarios - Appendix 7 (8 Pages, 87 KB)
• Older Peoples Housing - Prevalence Modelling - Appendix 8   (4 pages, 85 KB)
• Disabled Adaptation Needs - Appendix 9 (2 pages 16 KB)
• Assessing the need for supported housing for people with learning disabilities - Appendix 10 (2 pages, 12 KB)
• Assessing the need for Amenity/Medium Dependency Housing - Appendix 11 (2 pages, 12 KB)
• Assessing the need for sheltered/very sheltered/extra care housing - Appendix 12 (2 pages, 12 KB)
• Net Estimate of Housing Need - Appendix 13 (2 pages, 13 KB)
• Scottish Government Urban/Rural Classification 2009-2010, Moray - Appendix 14 (1 page, 1.23 MB)
• Moray Housing Need and Demand Assessment - Appendix 15  (1 page, 16 KB)

Consultation on the LHS

The Housing Strategy Group will carry out a public consultation on the key housing issues to be addressed during Jan-March 2012, to co-inside with a public consultation on the Local Plan Main Issues Report.

The Next Step

During 2012 the Council will be continuing to speak to a range of representative bodies and will be working on the development of a Consultative Draft Local Housing Strategy.  The Consultative Draft LHS is due to be published in summer 2012 and will be subject to a period of public consultation.

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Interim Local Housing Strategy 2010-2013

The Council has published its Interim Local Housing Strategy 2010-2013 (69 pages, 660KB)

The Interim LHS is based on an assessment of Moray’s housing market (19 pages, 111 KB)  This assessment has helped us to form a view of the problems local people have with Moray’s housing market. We have organised these problems into 4 themes. We have listed what we think are the main issues. We have listed the main actions we plan to take, to make the housing system work better.

Strategic Housing Investment Plan (SHIP)

Strategic Housing Investment Plans (45 pages, 599 KB) were prepared by local authorities for the first time in 2007.  The SHIP sets out how investment in affordable housing will be directed over the next 5 years to achieve the outcomes relating to affordable housing in the Local Housing Strategy.  We develop a new SHIP each year, in partnership with local Housing Associations and the Scottish Government.

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Accommodation Needs Assessment of Gypsies/Travellers in Grampian

This research was jointly commissioned by Moray, Aberdeen, and Aberdeenshire Councils.  The recommendations within the report are those of the researchers.  The report was considered by Communities Committee on 1st December 2009. Download the executive summary  (10 pages, 188 KB) or the  Full Report - Accommodation Needs of Gypsy/Travellers.  (119 pages, 468 KB)

Find out more about Gypsy/Travellers.

Fuel Poverty

A household is said to be in fuel poverty if it has to spend more than 10% of its income to heat the home to an acceptable level. The Scottish House Condition Survey 2002 estimates that 21% (8,000) of households in Moray are in fuel poverty.  The Council's actions on fuel poverty are detailed in the Interim Local Housing Strategy.  

More information on fuel poverty.

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Tenant Participation Strategy

The introduction of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 gave all Local Authorities a duty to produce a Strategy for Tenant Participation.  Tenant Participation is about tenants taking part in decision making processes and influencing decisions about housing policies, conditions and related services.    View more information on our Tenant Participation Strategy or click on tenant participation and how you can get involved.

Homelessness Strategy 2010 - 2015

The Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 required local authorities to carry out an assessment of homelessness and to submit a strategy for preventing and alleviating homelessness. Scottish Government guidance has since stated homelessness strategies, together with housing support strategies, should be integrated into the Local Housing Strategy. The Council, however, in recognising the importance of tackling homelessness has  produced a Homelessness Strategy  (35 pages, 217 KB) to cover the period 2010 –2015. 

The Strategy re-affirms our commitment to preventing and alleviating homelessness in all its forms.

The Moray Council produced its first Homelessness Strategy in March 2003 to cover a five year period. The Homelessness Strategy 2010-2015 seeks to build on the achievements of the first Homelessness Strategy.

For more information contact us on 0300 1234566.

 Temporary Accommodation Strategy 2009

The Council’s homelessness services were inspected by the Scottish Housing Regulator in 2008 and the Inspection Report , (70 pages, 741KB) was published in January 2009.  An Action Plan was developed to address the issues raised in the Inspection Report.  One of the key actions in the Action Plan was to develop a Temporary Accommodation Strategy to improve the management and supply of temporary homeless accommodation.

The development of the Temporary Accommodation Strategy ( 20 pages, 80.8 KB) focused on a more strategic use of temporary accommodation and improving the standard of accommodation for homeless households.   The Strategy was approved by the Communities Committee in March 2009.  The keys aims of the Strategy are:-

• to ensure provision of a range of temporary accommodation options in Moray to meet the needs of homeless households
• to ensure that temporary accommodation is of an appropriate quality to meet the needs of homeless households
• to ensure effective management of temporary accommodation, reflecting service users views
• to ensure that appropriate support and contact is provided to homeless households in temporary accommodation. 

The Council’s temporary accommodation standards   ( 4 pages, 58.2 KB) have been reviewed and updated in terms of the CIH and Shelter issued “Guidance on Standards for Temporary Accommodation” (16 pages, 903 KB) published in November 2010 and feedback gathered from service users. The draft standards have been revised and were approved by the Communities Committee in March 2011.

For more information contact us on 0300 1234566.

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Local Housing Strategy Archive Documents

• Local Housing Strategy Document  (1.43MB)
• Local Housing Strategy Easy to Read Version  (20KB)
• Local Housing Strategy Update 2005  (181KB)
• Local Housing Strategy Update 2006  (161KB)
• Local Housing Strategy Update 2007  (116KB)
• Local Housing Strategy Update 2008  (118KB)
• Local Housing Strategy Update 2009  (106KB)