Housing

Good quality affordable housing is central to the key priorities of local government including health and wellbeing, social care, community safety, regeneration, economic prosperity and social inclusion. The strategic housing function of local authorities therefore has a key role to play in making real improvements to the lives of our communities.

Housing markets, community needs and local priorities vary across Wales, but all areas face similar housing challenges:

• Lack of affordable housing to rent and to buy
• Poor quality across all sectors of the housing market
• Homelessness
• Housing related support needs of vulnerable people
• Demographic change and the needs of an ageing society
• Community safety
• Community cohesion and inequality
• Climate change

The role of local authorities
As community leaders, local authorities have a vital role to play in addressing these challenges both through direct provision of services and through harnessing the capacity of partners including housing associations, the voluntary sector, private landlords, developers and the finance sector. Over recent years, the stock of council homes has reduced significantly through the ‘Right to Buy’ policy and by stock transfer in some authorities. This has made real changes to the housing role of local government and has shifted the focus onto a much more strategic approach that involves activity across the whole housing market. The wide ranging housing work of a local authority now includes:

• Assessing the whole housing market including public and private sectors and planning to meet the future housing needs of all sections of the community
• Working with developers and housing associations to provide new affordable housing to rent and to buy
• Managing and maintaining homes owned by the authority
• Bringing local authority owned homes up to the Welsh Assembly Government’s Welsh Housing Quality Standard by 2012
• Allocating social housing to those in greatest need through an authority register and nominations to housing associations
• Providing services to prevent and address homelessness including housing options advice and the provision of temporary accommodation
• Meeting the need for housing related support for vulnerable people
• Meeting the housing and related needs of older people including sheltered housing, extra care schemes and tele-care services
• Assisting low income owner occupiers to repair and improve their homes
• Tackling poor conditions, poor management and overcrowding in private sector housing and licensing houses in multiple occupation (HMO)
• Adapting properties to meet the needs of disabled people
• Bringing empty properties back into use
• Regenerating areas and restoring older housing.

It is important that local authorities adopt a holistic approach to their housing role and ensure that planning for all of the authority’s housing functions are interlinked so, for example, the support services provided for vulnerable people are effective at preventing homelessness.

Housing must also be linked across the wider corporate strategic framework including the Community Strategy, the Health and Well Being Strategy and the Local Development Plan to ensure that communities benefit fully from the potential that housing has to make a real difference to peoples’ lives.

Key facts

• One third of houses in Wales were built before 1919
• Levels of unfitness in Wales have been reduced from nearly 20% in 1986 to around 4% in 2007
• 16% of homes in Wales are social housing (local authorities and housing associations), 11% is owned by private sector landlords and 73% is owner occupied
• For every £1 spent on supporting people services the public sector saves £1.68

Further Information
WLGA Housing Policy Statement (WLGA, July 2007)
The Better Homes for People in Wales Strategy (Welsh Assembly Government)
National Homelessness Strategy for Wales 2006-08 (Welsh Assembly Government)
Guidance in preparing Local Housing Strategies (Welsh Assembly Government)
Affordable Housing Toolkit 2006 (Welsh Assembly Government)
Costs and Benefits of the supporting people programme 2006 (Welsh Assembly Government)
WLGA Homelessness Handbook

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