More one bedroom homes needed in Welsh county

Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter

More one bedroom homes need to be built in a Welsh county, a councillors report has revealed.

At a meeting of Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council Place scrutiny committee on Tuesday, April 29 councillors received a report on the Local Market Housing Assessment.

This reviews and predicts the local housing needs for the next 15 years, and highlighted the need for 1,815 homes.

Of this figure, 750 should be affordable houses and 1,065 open market houses.

The report also says that overall, 44 per cent of these, 328 affordable houses and 345 open market houses should be built in the Ebbw Fawr valley area.

The report adds that 76 per cent of the need is for one bedroom homes with the other 24 per cent for homes of four bedrooms or bigger.

Opportunity

Cllr Sandra Behr (Labour) said: “It’s really welcome to get this and what is surprising is the demand for one bedroom is so high.

“And of course all the private builders and Tai Calon are doing two and three bedroom so this is an opportunity to think how we can increase the one bedroom ones.”

Cllr Behr went on to say that the Labour administration had “made a start” by tackling empty homes in the hope that it will bring the buildings back into use.

Earlier this month the Labour Cabinet agreed to increase the Council Tax premium for long term empty properties, doubling it for those empty for up to two years, 200 per cent up to three years and 300 per cent for over three years.

‘Rethink our town centres’

Cllr Behr continued: “I’m wondering whether we can make better use of the vacant flats above town centres and rethink our town centres.

“Converting them into nice single bedroom flats is what we need which might bring some different flavour to the town centres.”

Development plans team manager John Raine said that the expected need for one bedroom homes is something that “follows” from the previous assessment.

He told the committee that he had researched the issue in neighbouring council areas and found that Torfaen needed 63 per cent of one bedroom homes, Merthyr Tydfil 68 per cent and Caerphilly 86 per cent.

Mr Raine said: “We’re not alone in that respect and it will be a challenge for the council in implementing this and meeting the need that’s been identified.

He believed that assessing future planning applications that come before the council to gauge whether they meet the need will be a “big challenge” from a “planning point of view.”

Greatest need

Housing solutions and compliance team manager Mark Congreve added that one bedroom homes are “something we do need” because single people are the biggest “homelessness presentations” in the county.

Mr Congreve said: “There’s a lack of affordable accommodation and it is what we need.”

He explained that the problem with this is that developers will find it difficult to justify the financial viability for developing one bedroom house schemes.

Mr Congreve said that the council had spoken to a developer about a project to build 40 properties and 12 of these would be “one bed accommodation.”

But having larger volumes such as “20 or 30” one bed properties would cause problems and could be “dead in the water” due to a lack of money.

Mr Congreve said: “From a social housing side it’s about accessing the right amount of money at the right time.”

Cllr Jules Gardner (Labour) asked if there were any Welsh Government incentives to help develop town centre one bedroom flats.

Mr Congreve continued: “If you listen to private landlords they would say they are exiting the market, but we have seen an increase in Blaenau Gwent, we have 124 more than we had five years ago.

“But with the renting housing act (Housing Renting (Wales) Act 2016) they have a hike in tax, interest rates, maintenance and repairs cost and that pushes them away.”

He added that there are a “lot of disincentives” as the cost of “everything” continues to rise.

The committee agreed the report and recommended that Cabinet approve the report and that it is published on the council website soon.