This article is from the source 'bbc' and was first published or seen on . It will not be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/scotland/7355284.stm

The article has changed 2 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
More new council housing 'vital' £25m to kick-start house building
(1 day later)
Scots Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is to unveil a multi-million pound boost for council housing. Scots local authorities will be given a £25m package to build new council houses over the next three years.
She will tell the SNP spring conference in Edinburgh a new generation of council houses is vital to tackling the growing problem of homelessness. Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon made the announcement as she addressed the SNP spring conference.
The conference will come as the SNP prepares to celebrate its first year of government in Scotland. She said, with homelessness on the rise, housing was one of the biggest challenges facing Scotland.
BBC Scotland's Saturday coverage will include a live webchat with First Minister Alex Salmond at 1100 BST. As her party prepared to enter a second year of power at Holyrood, Ms Sturgeon said the government had so far built a solid record of achievement.
In her keynote speech to the conference Ms Sturgeon, the SNP's deputy leader, will identify homelessness - up by 50% in the last 10 years - as a target for urgent action. Ms Sturgeon also said ministers were working on a pilot programme of free health screening for amateur athletes, following the death of Motherwell captain Phil O'Donnell from heart failure during a match in December.
She will point out the first year of the new Scottish Government had seen council house building rise. She told a packed conference hall in Edinburgh that the Scottish Government's goal to build 35,000 new houses every year by 2015 would need "all hands on deck" to be met.
Ms Sturgeon is also expected to announce that, having already removed a disincentive to council house building - ending the right to buy on new build properties - there will also be a multi-million pound grant to councils which build new homes. An SNP government has not led to the end of the world as we know it Nicola SturgeonDeputy first minister of Scotland
And she claimed the previous Labour/Liberal Democrat government had presided over the building of just six council houses in four years.
The deputy SNP leader said councils had a big role to play in house building, along with housing associations and private developers.
"As we move now into our second year of government, it is vital that we take on the big challenges facing our country," she told delegates, some of whom had to stand in the aisles of the Herriot Watt University auditorium.
"There's no doubt that one of the biggest of these challenges is housing. In the last 10 years, homelessness in Scotland has been on the rise."
Ms Sturgeon said the £25m injection would kick-start a new generation of council homes, while confirming the government's commitment to ending right to buy for newly built social housing.
READ Ms STURGEON'S SPEECH NICOLA STURGEON SPEECH [28KB] Most computers will open this document automatically, but you may need Adobe Reader Download the reader here
There have been repeated calls, since Mr O'Donnell's death, to introduce heart screening for young athletes, although opinion about the effectiveness of such a move has been mixed.
Ms Sturgeon, also Scotland's health secretary, said there was a need to look at the evidence - but pointed out amateur sports people had no access to screening tests, as their professional counterparts did.
"Sudden cardiac death is rare - very rare," she said, "but it does claim too many fit, active young lives.
The Scottish Government has now agreed to invest in Hampden Stadium's sports medicine centre to provide free screening to non-professional sports people over the age of 16.
Sports screening moves follow the death of Phil O'Donnell
Turning to her opponents, Ms Sturgeon said the SNP had to "earn and re-earn" the Scottish peoples' trust, but added: "We have replaced the timidity of the Labour-led coalition with a can-do spirit that says our size as a country is no barrier to our success.
"We fight Scotland's corner. We have - and let me tell you we will continue - to stand up to the Westminster bullies."
Prime Minister Gordon Brown's axing of the 10p tax rate, Ms Sturgeon said, had left more than half a million Scots households worse off, declaring: "Delegates, that's not socialist. That is scandalous."
She went on: "Our first year in government has been one of solid achievement - delivering on health and education, stepping up the fight against crime, freezing council tax and helping our small businesses grow.
"Over the past year, the people of Scotland have discovered that an SNP government has not led to the end of the world as we know it. The sky did not fall in. The four horsemen of the apocalypse are not stalking the land."