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Welsh Conservatives pledge to double housebuilding
The Welsh Conservatives have launched a new housing strategy, including a promise to double housebuilding in Wales.
The party said its proposals would “re-establish housing as a basic right for all”.
It promised to deliver 12,000 homes a year during the next Welsh Assembly term if it wins the 2021 election and to build 100,000 over 10 years.
Around 6,000 homes were built in Wales in the 12 months to June – a drop of 19% on the year before.
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The strategy, titled ‘Housing a Nation’, also includes pledges to create a cabinet secretary for housing and planning, and to ensure that 20% of new homes are developed using offsite methods by 2030.
And it promises to reintroduce the Right to Buy, scrapped early this year by the Labour-run Welsh Government, on a “reformed basis” which would require 100% of sales receipts to be invested in new social housing.
David Melding, shadow housing secretary in Wales, said: “This is a vision of momentous ambition, one which puts forward a set of comprehensive ideas to tackle the housing crisis.
“Housing was once seen to be one of the most important areas of public policy, with the same emphasis and priority as healthcare.
“This paper will restore that importance so that we can build our way out of this crisis once and for all.”
Other proposals in the Conservatives’ strategy include a requirement for all new homes to have an electric charging point and a promise to provide housing associations with “longer-term budgets to all proper planning and to develop more flexible range of housing types”.
