North Wales MS Mark Isherwood has criticised the Labour Welsh Government for its long-term failure to tackle the housing crisis in Wales.
Intervening in Wednesday’s debate in the Welsh Parliament on the Local Government and Housing Committee report – ‘Second Homes’, Mr Isherwood highlighted NHBC statistics for this year which show that Wales was the only nation or region in the UK to see new home completions reduce.
He said:
“I think it's about 18 or 19 years since I first highlighted to the then Welsh Government the fact that there would be an affordable housing crisis in Welsh communities if the then cuts to social housing weren't reversed. But, do you share my concern that the latest published figures for quarter 2 of 2022 show that, once again, new home completions in Wales went in reverse, and it's the only Nation or Region once again in the UK where they actually reduced?”
Speaking after the meeting, Mr Isherwood added:
“From 2003 I campaigned with the sector, warning the Welsh Government that Wales faced an affordable Housing supply crisis if urgent action was not taken.
“Instead, Labour Welsh Government cut the number of new social homes by over 70 per cent during the first three Assembly terms, as waiting lists mushroomed.
“The 2012 UK Housing Review stated ‘it was the Welsh Government itself that gave housing lower priority in its overall budgets, so that by 2009/10 it had by far the lowest proportional level of housing expenditure of any of the four UK countries’.
“Following the Welsh Government's massive cuts in Social Housing Grant, the Assembly's North Wales Regional Committee met in Pwllheli in October 2003 - 19 years ago - to take evidence from local people on the affordable housing crisis in communities there - when deliverable solutions were proposed to us, which were then ignored by the Labour Welsh Government.
“Even in 2019, the highest year for UK new home registrations since 2007, the numbers in Wales fell by over 12%. This is why Wales has an affordable housing supply crisis.”
ENDS
Note: NHBC is the UK’s leading independent provider of warranty and insurance for new homes. They are a non-profit distributing company limited by guarantee, with no shareholders, independent of government and the construction industry.