Developed by Scottish Borders Council (SBC), in conjunction with a range of partners including local Registered Social Landlords, the Strategy sets out a vision for housing and housing-related services from 2017 to 2022.

Councillor Frances Renton, SBC’s executive member for social work and housing, said: “Housing plays a vital role in meeting the needs of local people, communities and the economy, and appropriate, affordable housing is important to everybody.

“We have been working with partners across the Scottish Borders over the past six months to develop an ambitious vision and priorities for action over the next five years, but want to make sure that local people, communities and organisations have their say on them and help to shape the final strategy.”

All Scottish local authorities are required to prepare a Local Housing Strategy every five years, setting out a vision for the supply, quality and availability of housing in their local area. It also sets out a range of actions the council and partners will take to make sure this vision becomes a reality.

The draft Local Housing Strategy is subject to public consultation until the end of October.

Following the consultation period the Local Housing Strategy will be finalised, taking into account the consultation responses, and submitted for formal approval to Scottish Ministers in November.

A number of consultation events will take place during the public consultation period.