Erskine’s Chairman celebrates the opening of the new Erskine Cottages with Royal Scots veterans Robert Anderson and Robert Brown

As well as the five care homes across the country, Erskine has 57 veterans cottages that ex-Service men and women, who are able to live independently, can live in with their families.

In April 2009 work started to build six brand new semi-detached cottages which marked the start of a four-year phased rebuild of the cottages on the Erskine estate and to enable the veterans’ charity to continue providing first-class housing to veterans well into the future.

The houses, which seen the first residents move in last November, were planned in accordance with the principles of Housing for Varying Needs providing barrier-free access to the front and back doors, level access wet floor shower room and all rooms have been designed to accommodate furniture and other associated activity spaces.

The first completed phase of the Cottages programme

The environmental impact has been taken into consideration and as a result the new homes will be constructed from a breathing wall timber frame with recycled newspaper insulation and have A-rated condensing boilers to help keep fuel bills low and reduce carbon emissions.

There is also a whole house ventilation system which will provide fresh, filtered air into each home.

Keith Taylor, Erskine’s Executive director, said: “This project demonstrates Erskine’s commitment to provide state of the art housing to veterans. As our service personnel display the highest levels of bravery and courage on operations throughout the world it is only right that we, as a military charity, are able to provide quality accommodation should they need us in the future.”

Work has begun on Phase Two of the rebuild programme to rebuild 8 further properties

Work has already begun on the next phase of the Cottages Replacement Programme which has seen six of our older cottages demolished to make way for eight new properties.

These will be made up of three, four and five bedroomed properties, ideal for veterans and their families to live.

To apply for an Erskine Cottage please click on the following link:
http://www.veteransscotland.org.uk/housing/applicants_area.html