Assembly Member reveals true gap in social housing

12.00.00am GMT Wed 5th Mar 2008

The Welsh Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Housing, Social Justice and Communities, Peter Black, has revealed in a Welsh Assembly debate the true extent of the failure of the government's policies on social housing.

Moving an amendment tabled by the Welsh Liberal Democrats in a debate on affordable housing, Mr. Black highlighted his own research which discovered that only 1,089 properties had been built in Wales using the keystone of the government's affordable housing strategy, Section 106 agreements in the last five years. This is despite there being over 86,000 households in Wales on housing waiting lists and the average house price in Wales reaching over £163,000.

"The government has a target of building 6,500 new affordable properties in the next four years. It is simply not enough," said Mr. Black. "That is not even one tenth of the amount to what is actually needed. The lack of affordable housing means that repossessions and homelessness are on the rise."

"One of their fundamental tools in ensuring affordable housing is built is the use of section 106 agreements in the planning process, however the research I have conducted has shown that several Councils, such as Carmarthenshire, have not built a single house in the past five years using a section 106 agreement. Only one local authority has managed to build what I would consider to be a significant number of properties, Liberal Democrat run Cardiff Council which has built 663 properties, for which they should be congratulated."

"The government however wants to deny there is an affordable housing crisis. Plaid, who had previously wanted to help those in need, have sold out and are backing Labour on the issue. There is no overnight solution to the crisis and every day that we have to wait for the government to admit the problem and take real action to solve it, is a day closer to breaking point for our housing market."