New statistics revealing the number of affordable home approvals in Scotland show good early progress towards delivering the Scottish Government’s target of delivering 50,000 affordable homes over the next five years, according to housing minister Kevin Stewart.

Official statistics published today show the number of affordable homes approved over the year to the end of June 2016 has increased by 26 per cent on the previous year, bringing the total number of approvals over the year to 8,067.

The figures also show that during 2015-16, the number of new house builds started, across the public and private sector, rose to 16,910, a 4 per cent increase on the previous year and the highest number of starts since 2008-9.

Speaking ahead of a visit to a new housing development in Edinburgh which will provide 236 much needed affordable homes in the city, Mr Stewart said: “We have an excellent track record on housing. The number of affordable home completions from April 2007 to end March 2016 was 60,704 – on average 24 per cent more per year than the 38,015 delivered between April 2000 and March 2007.

“In the previous session of Parliament, we exceeded our target of delivering 30,000 affordable homes, and our bold and ambitious More Homes Scotland approach will build on that achievement.

“We have committed to investing over £3 billion to deliver at least 50,000 affordable homes over the next five years. This is accompanied by increased housing subsidy levels and a new Rural Housing Fund to boost the supply of affordable rural housing.

“National Housing Trust initiatives – such as the one I am visiting at Shrubhill today, are leading examples of the new ground broken by the Scottish Government through innovative financing schemes in housing. Through NHT, 2,000 affordable rented homes have been approved and over 1,000 homes completed throughout Scotland.

“We’ve also helped stimulate growing confidence in the private housing market and supported people into home ownership, in particular through our £500 million Help to Buy (Scotland) scheme. This year alone we have invested £160m to support a further 5,000 households to buy a home through our Open Market Shared Equity and Help to Buy schemes.

“High quality, energy efficient, affordable homes form the cornerstone of socially and economically sustainable communities and we will continue to work hard with the entire housing sector to deliver more homes for the people of Scotland.”

Today’s statistics are also one of the last to show number of Right to Buy applicants. The scheme closed to all new applicants on 31 July 2016. In line with the scheme closing, applications from local authority tenants rose by 40 per cent to 5,006 throughout 2015-16. Throughout the same time period there was a total of 2,088 sales under Right to Buy – an increase of 14 per cent on the previous year.

Mr Stewart added: “It is absolutely vital that people can access social housing when they need it most. Since Right to Buy was introduced in 1980, nearly half a million council and housing association homes have been sold to their tenants.

“By ending the Right to Buy we are protecting up to 15,500 social homes from sale over the next ten years and safeguarding this stock for future generations.”

The development in Edinburgh will see property developers Places for People provide 236 affordable homes in the Shrubhill area. In total 374 homes will be built on the site, 150 of which will be National Housing Trust (NHT) homes. The innovative financing scheme, which is backed by government guarantees, has seen more than 2,000 affordable rented homes approved and more than 1,000 homes completed across Scotland since 2012.

Shrubhill is the latest of seven major sites in Edinburgh delivering almost 900 affordable homes unlocked for development through NHT.