BARRHEAD’S local authority will spend £900,000 in three months buying “off the shelf” housing.

East Renfrewshire Council has used emergency approval measures to enable the purchases after the Scottish Government offered the local authority £500,000.

The only catch is that ERC must spend the money by the end of March, leaving just three months for the purchases to be completed.

A report to ERC’s cabinet this week will inform councillors of the emergency approval, which bypassed cabinet using rules which allowed just two of councillors to approve the plans.

ERC’s officers approached Barrhead councillor Danny Devlin and and council leader Jim Fletcher.

The council will be able to use the cash to buy up to ten houses “off the shelf”.

The report, which will be delivered by director of environment Iain Maclean, says: “The Scottish Government has, at short notice, offered East Renfrewshire Council a grant of up to £500,000 (50 per cent grant funding) to purchase on the open market up to a total of 10 dwellings, which must be either one bedroom dwellings anywhere across the council area or three bedroom properties within the Levern Valley area.

“This will assist in increasing the number of social rented houses in East Renfrewshire.

“This scheme is known as “Rented Off The Shelf”.”

The purchases must be completed, and the houses empty, by March 31, 2017 as no money will be allowed to carry over in to the new financial year in April.

The report continues: “Given the time it takes to identify, survey and value suitable dwellings, negotiate with the vendors and complete all legal procedures in order to complete sales by, March 31, it was necessary to commence work on this during December 2016 and this urgency meant Housing Services could not wait until the next meeting of the Cabinet to seek approval.

“Section 10 of the Financial Regulations allow for approval to be sought from two members of the Cabinet.”