Council chiefs have drawn up plans to build almost 600 affordable homes across East Renfrewshire in the next five years.

A new report will detail East Renfrewshire’s strategic housing investment plan (SHIP), which is set to be signed off this week.

It shows the Scottish Government is expected to hand the council almost £18million to fund new affordable housing schemes across East Renfrewshire.

Between next year and 2022, the council wants to build 326 socially-rented homes, with a further 271 between 2022 and 2024.

Projects at Maidenhill and in the north and south of Barrhead have been put forward for funding as part of the SHIP, alongside developments in Neilston, Netherlee, Newton Mearns and Clarkston.

But East Renfrewshire Council’s director of environment, Andrew Cahill, has warned that it might not be plain sailing for some affordable housing schemes.

He said: “Historic challenges have been associated with delivering the SHIP programme, both in relation to project slippage and the ownership of sites, despite over-programming.

“These risks will be mitigated as far as possible by ongoing monitoring of delivery of the agreed programme, as well as continuing to identify land and other projects going forward which could address the shortfall in affordable homes in East Renfrewshire.”

Mr Cahill also warned of “significant pressure” and changing housing priorities as the number of elderly households increases across the local authority area.

The SHIP document identifies where land, subsidies and other resources will be used to address affordable housing needs.

The Scottish Government has set aside more than £3billion to give to local authorities in a bid to build 50,000 affordable homes throughout the country.

As part of that, almost £6m is expected to be given to East Renfrewshire Council this year.

But, if that money is not spent, it may not be carried forward to the next year.

Councils are expected to update their affordable housing investment priorities every 12 months.

This year, the council will complete its building of 23 affordable homes at Robertson Street and Fenwick Drive, in Barrhead.

East Renfrewshire Council’s cabinet members will discuss the SHIP proposals at a meeting tomorrow.

The plans to build more affordable housing come at a time when council chiefs are examining the factors behind rough sleeping in East Renfrewshire.

Housing officers raised concerns in May this year after almost 12 per cent of homeless applicants claimed to have slept rough.

Mr Cahill said: “In most cases, the period of rough sleeping appears to have only been one to three nights, with no indication of rough sleeping occurring after the customer had approached housing services for assistance.”

Mr Cahill also said there had been some cases where applicants had said they were sleeping rough when, in fact, they were sleeping at a friend’s house.

And housing advisers have now been told to investigate claims of rough sleeping in further detail to avoid wrongful recording in homeless applications.

The council has been asked to produce a ‘rapid re-housing plan’ for the Scottish Government by December in a bid to eradicate rough sleeping.

The report also shows that 36 of the council’s 315 homeless applicants last year returned to the address they were living at before making their application.

This was around 11 per cent of all applicants – up from 6.5 per cent the previous year and described as “higher than usual” by the Scottish Housing Regulator.

Nine of those applicants returned home after being given advice, while 21 refused to move into social homes before returning to their original address.

The remaining six did move into temporary accommodation but later returned to their homes.

Mr Cahill said a large number of homeless applicants were from Eastwood and refused to move into social housing in the Levern Valley.

He added: “The low availability of social housing in East Renfrewshire prevents housing services from meeting the aspirations of any homeless applicants.

“A large number of applicants presented from the Eastwood area, where availability of social housing is particularly limited.”