Affordable homes planned for David Lloyd George’s boyhood village

Dale Spridgeon, local democracy reporter

Council planners have received a proposal for five “affordable homes” in former prime minister David Lloyd George’s home village, Llanystumdwy.

A champion of affordable housing in his day, the new homes will be situated a short distance from the Lloyd George Museum and Highgate – the Welsh radical statesman’s boyhood home.

The dwellings are set to be erected on land adjoining Maes Llwyd, behind the community-run Tafarn y Plu (the Feathers) public house.

The proposal also includes plans for an internal access road, hard and soft landscaping and associated drainage.

Affordable

Lloyd George was a Liberal politician and was in power between 1916 and 1922.

After the First World War he pledged “homes fit for heroes” with a housing Act following in 1919, eventually leading to the establishment of council homes.

The full application has been submitted by Tŷ Gwynedd as part of a housing plan by Cyngor Gwynedd.

The homes would be developed and sold on the basis of a shared equity model to provide “affordable” homes.

Different to the type of affordable housing provided by housing associations, the proposals describe the development and provision of “intermediate quality housing”.

Shared ownership

The properties are expected be available on a “shared ownership basis,” allowing eligible occupiers to buy most of a dwelling’s value through fixing mortgages at a discount from open market values.

The plans state that this “ensures affordability” and the equity retained by the local authority would “guarantee they will provide a community resource to the community for decades to come”.

The homes include a two-bedroom home, three three-bedroom homes and a three-bedroom home with a garage.

The proposal notes that each house will have two parking spaces to the front and side along with a small section of garden, and a main garden at the back.

Two visitor parking spaces are included at the end of the proposed internal access road.

The proposed site is surrounded by properties to the north and west, is separated by a pocket of trees, and bounds the A487 to the south.

Concerns

Immediately to the north is an existing community allotment and the homes would be within a five minute walk from Ysgol Gynradd Llanystumdwy.

Following a consultation, public concerns raised include “speed limits” and “increased traffic”.

In response, developers noted the existing Maes Llwyd access had been designed to meet “highway standards” and that Llanystumdwy had a 20mph road, so “vehicles should not be travelling at excessive speeds”.

The development’s small size was also not considered to result in a significant traffic increase.

Other comments included queries over the need for the dwellings, but developers have stated the current figures for housing need “clearly showed demand for affordable housing” in the area.

There were also “concerns at the scale” of the development, but developers have said that all the properties are to be “dormer bungalows” and are “not considered to be excessive or overbearing”.