The origins of this work go back nearly 20 years.

Ekopia conducted a housing needs questionnaire in 2004 and produced proposals for a land trust in 2005 and 2006, which were discussed at various community meetings. The headline results of the survey included that half of the 112 households who responded lived in accommodation that suffered problems such as poor insulation, damp and condensation.

The first version of the Allocations Policy was approved in July 2007. Further consultations with the community were conducted in the autumn of 2010 after an agreement was reached between the Moray Council and Duneland Ltd. to enable affordable housing to be made available at the East Whins cluster. The principles behind the revised version of the Policy created then has remained largely unchanged since then.

In 2016 PET conducted a new survey of housing needs and aspirations as part of a community consultation process for the design of 6 new flats at West Whins. Results included that the age group most preferred for housing support was “older than 65” (around 43%), followed by “between 25-35” (around 39%) and that the most important criteria for allocating social housing were financial need and medical or welfare reasons. This survey then influenced the wording of the housing support policy created for these units and those that followed.