Council eyes up houses on new estate

Richard Youle Local Democracy Reporter

A Welsh council is set to purchase 141 homes at a new estate which will be used as a mix of council homes and low-cost homes for first-time buyers.

Swansea Council is to buy 141 homes at Garden Village, a senior councillor said.

Cllr Andrea Lewis told colleagues at a cabinet meeting that 71 of them would be offered as low-cost home ownership, with first-time buyers the target market, and that 70 would be council homes. Low-cost ownership means buyers being able to buy a property at below market value with the remainder held as a charge by a third party.

Plans

Cllr Lewis made the announcement while presenting council plans to invest £219m over four years in new homes and housing upgrade schemes. The cabinet member for service transformation described the £219m capital sum as significant. “There are some really exciting opportunities,” she said.

The 141 homes are to be acquired at Persimmon Homes West Wales’s development of up to 750 properties on land north of Garden Village and east of Gorseinon. The project will also include a primary school, park and open spaces.

The council also plans to continue building properties of its own, for example in Bonymaen, as well as acquiring them from elsewhere. Just over £57m of the planned £219m expenditure between 2025-26 and 2028-29 will be on this construction and acquisition initiative.

The £219m will also pay for upgrades to council housing in Waunarlwydd, West Cross, and Penyrheol among others. Two particularly high-value projects are multi-million-pound refurbishments of high-rise flats in Croft Street and Griffith John Street near the city centre.

Funding

Funding for the the £219m will come from borrowing, grants, and housing revenue budget contributions. Cllr Lewis said the council was working through a backlog of housing repairs, that costs had risen sharply, and that housing rental income was lower than originally planned due to a Welsh Government rent-setting policy.

And she warned that meeting a Wales-wide housing quality standard introduced last year, which requires a property to be highly energy-efficient and virtually “carbon neutral”, would cost the council around £900m. A report before cabinet described this as unaffordable.

Cllr Robert Francis-Davies, cabinet member for investment, regeneration, events and tourism, said the four-year capital investment of £219m was more than he’d ever known and that it would create jobs and boost the  economy.

Councils have a housing revenue budget as well as a capital budget. Swansea Council plans to spend £46m on housing maintenance and management from its revenue account in 2025-26. Final spending decisions will be made on March 6 when councillors sets the various budgets including council tax.