FOLLOWING last week’s announcement that Carmarthenshire County Council plans to provide 1,000 affordable homes over the next five years, The Herald spoke to Executive Board Member for Housing Councillor Linda Evans.
The Affordable Homes Delivery Plan promises to create a total of 1027 affordable homes across the county by 2020. These will be provided through a number of routes, including managing private sector lets, purchasing privatesector properties for rent, and bringing empty private-sector properties back into use.
Cllr Evans said: “We haven’t had an affordable homes delivery plan for quite a while, so when I was elected in June it was one of the first things we did as part of the portfolio with the department; looking at how we could have more homes within the county, and doing it in a way that was reasonable as far as cost and answered need.
“It all started back before I was elected, when there was a consultation done with the public. Over 800 people responded a nd what was very clear was that almost 80% of the people who responded said that our priority should be bringing back empty homes within the county. “
When we suggested that this would be trebling the annual number of affordable homes created in the county, Cllr Evans gave a frank response: “It’s a huge ask, to be honest with you,” she admitted. “We are almost sure we can provide over 1,000 homes – we’re actually quite confident on that. But that is an ask of 200 homes a year over the next five years. When you think of it historically, it has been on an average around 70 homes a year.
“It’s stepping up the game and trying to answer demands. There’s no point having a register that keeps on going up and up. We need to do something about it and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
The Council has set a target of bringing 280 empty homes back into use. This will be partially funded by the Welsh Government Houses into Homes scheme, which the council has used before. As Cllr Evans pointed out, bringing empty properties back into use has benefits for the wider community: “We know that we have at least 2,000 empty homes in the county. We wouldn’t be able to bring them all back into use, but there are probably ways in which we could work with owners to try to encourage them to bring them back into use to be rented out or sold as affordable homes.
“Getting empty properties back into use is an advantage for everybody, because it’s not a good thing to have an empty property sitting within a community – I think it has an impact when there are empty properties in an area,” she added.
Managing private sector homes through the Social Letting Agency has already been done in Llanelli, and it is hoped that this can be developed across the county.
“The social letting agency is an ideal way for people who have a property that they do not use, that they wish to rent out, but maybe don’t want to be committed to managing that.
“So what happens there is that the council will manage it on their behalf. They will find the tenants and make sure that everything is fine within that tenancy agreement. So it’s the council working as an agent on behalf of the private landlord,” Cllr Evans explained.
“With the landlord licensing that is due to come in the next year, there is a possibility, hopefully, that people will take advantage of this, because therefore these individuals would not have to get a licence. It takes that responsibility off individuals.”
The Landlord Licensing Scheme will involve landlords undergoing a certain amount of training, and it is thought that those with a smaller number of properties may take advantage of the social letting agency.
The majority of the affordable homes provision will be in rural areas, with 459 – almost half – earmarked for the Llanelli and District area: “That is where the population is, and that is where the biggest need is,” Cllr Evans explained.
“If you asked how we knew there was a need for 2000 houses, the reason we know is the register and where people have asked for houses – where the demand is. Everything will be done according to where the need is, and priority will be given in areas where people have asked for homes.”
However, she acknowledged that there was a ‘question mark’ over the reporting of housing need in rural areas. Only 75 of the 1027 affordable homes will be provided in market towns and rural areas.
“Do we understand exactly what is needed in rural areas?” Cllr Evans asked. “Housing need in rural areas could be underreported – I represent a rural area myself. What is the need in rural areas?
“If you look at the registers, very often you don’t have many people requesting council properties in rural areas for renting. But maybe we are misreading it. Maybe the fact is that people who live in rural areas and have always lived there don’t put their names on registers, because they believe they will never have a chance of getting a home.
“We will be looking at that over the next few months.”
We asked how the council had identified that it was capable of creating so many more affordable homes: “It’s a package – when you put things together, it adds up,” Cllr Evans said.
“That is what is important when you think about developing; that we are doing it the right way, using the right money, in the right departments.
“Development or buying property in rural areas is more expensive than urban areas so we have to think about how we do it in rural areas and how we do it in urban areas.
“One thing that is for sure is that one cap doesn’t fit all. We can’t build 2,000 houses because the money wouldn’t stretch to that and it would be foolish for us to even think so – on top of that, the people of Carmarthenshire would not be happy if we built 2000 homes when you do have empty properties sitting around in communities already.”
Cllr Evans suggested that the money raised from S106 agreements for affordable housing with developers could be put to better use in some instances.
“If a private contractor comes in and builds an estate of 20-30 houses in the past they would be providing a percentage of those as affordable homes,” she said. “But we need to ask the question sometimes – do we need the affordable housing on that site in that actual village or community?
“So we need to work with private investors to see if that money could be used within the electoral ward or within the nearest electoral ward where there is a need.
“We’ve started doing it, but it is something we need to look at. I know of contractors who have come back to planning and reported that they can’t sell the affordable homes on this site. Maybe the need is not in that particular place. There’s no point spending it within the ward if the need is not there. We have to make any funding stretch to the best resources possible.”
The council is also looking to purchase 187 existing private sector homes, which Cllr Evans suggested was one way of ensuring a quick turnover. “We’ve got to understand that when building new homes that takes time – it takes time to go through planning and everything else, so you are talking about 18 months.
“What is important is that our own valuers would go out and value the property as well, so we know exactly what needs to be spent on it and then we would put an offer in.
“Our intention is to make every house up to CHS, which is still cheaper than buying, and is using resources already available.”
Cllr Evans emphasised that the priority was maintaining the existing housing stock: “We mustn’t forget that we have 9,000 properties already and our responsibility first and utmost is to ensure that we keep the quality uppermost,” she added.
We’ve spent £200m on our properties over the last few years to get them up to the Carmarthenshire Homes Standard and we need to maintain that – our very first priority is to look after our tenants we’ve got already.”
Cllr Evans also warned that the delivery of the plan as it stood was reliant on Welsh Government funding being maintained at the current level: “What we’ve got to remember is that this is what we can do today,” she added.
“But this can only be done with the Welsh Government grants and making the best use of those grants possible. If any of those things changes, if those grants come to an end, obviously that would have an effect on this affordable homes plan which I’ve made clear to scrutiny and will also make clear to council as well.”
The Affordable Homes Delivery Plan went before the Community Scrutiny Committee on Friday (Feb 12) and was sent on to the Executive Board for approval, before going before the full council in March.
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