Housing would be a core focus for a Plaid Government
Siân Gwenllian MS
Two reports once more draw attention to the growing housing crisis facing Wales and the need for urgent action.
The Children’s Commissioner for Wales published a report on April 11 on how housing and homelessness affects children and young people and illustrates the stark realities of life in completely unsuitable temporary accommodation.
Shelter Cymru is due to launch a report with new alarming statistics on the growing numbers of people and children who are currently on waiting lists for social homes.
Let’s hope the reports provide the Welsh Government with a renewed focus on the lack of adequate housing – but I am not holding my breath.
Vision
Ensuring that every person and every family has a warm, suitable home is central to Plaid Cymru’s vision of a fair and equal society.
Housing is not just about shelter – it is a fundamental pillar of health, well-being, and opportunity. A secure home provides stability, improves health outcomes, and enables children to succeed in education, ultimately shaping a better future for individuals and communities alike.
Yet, the reality in Wales today tells a different story. Too many people are homeless, too many are priced out of their own communities, and too many struggle with unaffordable rents.
Meanwhile, others exploit the housing system, accumulating multiple properties while local people are left without options. This is a stark symbol of the deep inequalities in modern Wales.
Crisis
Despite the scale of the crisis, housing is not a priority for the Welsh Government. Just 4.9% of the entire government budget is allocated to housing. There is no vision, no strategy, and the action taken so far has been woefully inadequate.
A Plaid Cymru government would change this. Housing would be a core focus – not just as a matter of social justice, but as a key part of the public health agenda and a crucial step toward reducing inequality.
We believe that housing is a fundamental right. That’s why we support enshrining the right to a home in Welsh law. What could be more basic, more essential, than the right to a secure, affordable place to live? But enshrining this right in law is just the start – we must also take real, decisive action to make it a reality.
The real transformation lies in increasing the supply of social housing. A Plaid Cymru government would make this a priority from day one in May 2026
There is no doubt that Right to Buy has been a key driver of the housing crisis we face today. The promise that sold homes would be replaced was broken, and the result is plain to see:
- Hundreds of thousands on social housing waiting lists in Wales.
- Thousands are living in overcrowded or unsuitable accommodation.
- Young people are sofa-surfing, sleeping in cars, or relying on temporary shelters.
- 11,000 people are stuck in “temporary” accommodation—often for years.
- 3,000 Welsh children are sleeping in hotel rooms or the like.
Homelessness has reached record levels, and frontline organisations working to support those affected are stretched to their limits.
But it does not have to be this way. Wales has the power to turn this crisis around.
Social housing
The most effective, permanent solution to the housing crisis is to increase the supply of high-quality social housing.
We need strategic policies, long-term planning, and the political will to act. Plaid Cymru offers a real alternative. We will use innovative funding models, tackle inefficiencies in the planning system, and unlock land for development.
The scale of transformation needed is immense.
Now is the time for action and to begin a housing revolution in Wales that puts people, communities, and fairness at its heart.
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The healthcare crisis means even if people can access a GP they may die before receiving lifesaving surgery, or suffer in pain as they wait years for other treatments. The forced alternative to this is paying for whatever they can afford with hard earned savings.
Meanwhile, the political posturing that comes with an impending election instead looks at where votes may be won by ‘promising’ to hand out houses that cost hundreds of thousands to thousands who have no intention to pay any rent, let alone council tax.
Erthygl dda iawn. Ond cofier, nid diffyg tai sydd yng Nghymru, ond gormodedd o’r math angywir. A wnaiff Plaid Cymru rywbeth ynghylch y niferoedd enfawr o dai di-angen sy’n cael eu gorfodi ar gynghorau Cymru drwy ‘amcanestyndiadau poblogaeth’ y cynlluniau ‘datblygu’ lleol? Mae’r datblygiadau hyn yn annog mewnlifiad enfawr i mewn i’n cymunedau ac yn gyfryw a gwladychu. Mae colli tiriogaeth, colli troedle tiriogaethol, colli tir, colli cynefin, colli cymdogaeth, colli cymuned, yn drasiedi fawr iawn. Mae gwladychu yn drosedd cymdeithasol yn ôl y Cenhedloedd Unedig. Pa iws fod yna’r hawl i dŷ os yw eich tiriogaeth a’ch cynefin yn… Read more »
Wele hwn: https://nation.cymru/news/ms-calls-on-welsh-government-to-scrap-local-development-plans/
a hwn: https://nation.cymru/news/government-urged-to-overhaul-wales-failing-planning-system/
Largely recycled waffle. What strategic policies, long term planning and innovative funding models are going to lead us to these sunlit uplands? Do tell.
Actually it’s for the politicians to set the priorities and for the civil service to figure out how to deliver them. Or that’s how democratic government is supposed to work unlike in Westminster where the politicians set the priorities and the civil service shrugs and laughs like they did with Johnson’s levelling up and now with Starmer’s growth plan.
In other words, Plaid has no idea how to deliver this “core focus”? There is nothing democratic about handing it all over to civil servants (even if Welsh Government had a decent track record, which of course they don’t). It also speaks volumes for the low calibre of our elected representatives.
It speaks volumes for your misunderstanding of your own governance. We don’t elect experts. We elect people to make sure the experts do the right thing. And that has never happened in the Treasury which, if you remember, was set up to launder the proceeds of empire not administrate a modern state.
I think you will find that “experts” are in very short supply. There is 25 years of evidence.
There are decades of evidence that central government mandarins lack the skills to deliver. The very need to “level up” is an admission of this abject failure. But should we really be surprised? The unelected bureaucrats wandering the shadowy corridors of Whitehall except on wine-time Fridays are mostly drawn from the private education system. Before any other considerations that immediately means 93% of the UK’s raw talent is being overlooked. Not only that, no-one spends all that money putting their progeny through the finest networking opportunities money can buy just to have them take up a career in the public… Read more »
Plaid say one thing but in power do the opposite viz Gwynedd cc who constantly oppose planing application for affordable housing.
The Lib Dems do this too because it’s normal to have a conflict between national and local priorities. But it’s not a binary choice between simply blocking or permitting all private sector developments. National policy can set targets with financial penalties for local governments and leave it up to them to decide where to put the developments. These targets should also be retrospective so local governments which have been dragging their heels don’t benefit from that historic restraint.