Council falls short of housebuilding targets despite signs of improvement

A south Wales council has fallen well short of its housebuilding targets, despite signs of improvement in the local housing market, a new report has revealed.

At a meeting of Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council on Wednesday, October 28, councillors will be asked to approve the Annual Monitoring Report (AMR) for the LDP – which has been out of date since the end of 2021.

The AMR covers development during 2025/2026 and is required by law to be submitted to the Welsh Government by the end of this month.

The report explains: “The 2026 AMR shows that the current Blaenau Gwent LDP has not delivered its key housing, affordable housing, employment and regeneration objectives, with most strategic indicators failing or only partially meeting targets.

“However, there are signs of improvement in housing construction activity, and the preparation of a Joint Local Development Plan (JLDP) with Torfaen provides an opportunity to establish a more realistic and deliverable strategy for the future.”

The LDP target was for 3,500 dwellings to be built in Blaenau Gwent December 31, 2021 when the LDP dropped dead – but it continues to be a material consideration for county planners.

But by the end of March 2026 only 2,074 dwellings had been built – this means delivery is still 1,426 dwellings short of the target and 41 per cent below the planned need.

Annually the LDP’s expectation is that an average annual requirement of 233 dwellings would be built in the county borough.

Last year 124 dwellings were built and of these 49 were affordable homes.

This meant that for last year LDP delivery was 109 dwellings below target.

The report continued: “The plan has experienced housing under-delivery for virtually the entire monitoring period.

“Despite overall under-delivery, the housing market is moving in the right direction.”

This is because there are several house building projects at various stages of development.

These include 196 home being built at Persimmon Homes’ College Road/Waun-y-Pound site in Ebbw Vale.

The report said:  “Several large sites are now contributing to completions and are expected to increase future build rates.”

On employment sites the report said that no development had taken place during 2025/2026 on sites allocated for employment schemes in the LDP.

However, 3,428 square metres of “employment floorspace” was built at existing employment sites.

The report explains that due to the LDP’s failure to deliver, the triggers for a LDP review had been set off as far back as in 2018 – which allows work to start on a replacement LDP.

Blaenau Gwent planners have been working on a new LDP for several years but this work was hampered by delays which included the Covid-19 pandemic.

In March, Blaenau Gwent councillors agreed to scrap their own replacement LDP, in favour of forging a new joint LDP with Torfaen.

It is expected that the joint LDP could be in place by 2030.