SOCIAL housing communities traditionally reserved for the over 50s will soon be open to all applicants, if Wrexham Council approves a new housing allocation policy.
Local lettings policies in Wrexham have always included some apartment complexes or communities where only older applicants are considered for placement – a policy common in many local authorities across the UK.
But proposed changes to Wrexham’s social housing allocation policy for 2025/26 and beyond would remove local letting policies, allowing younger applicants on the housing waiting list to be placed in traditionally older communities.
The move is designed to further reduce social housing waiting lists in the Wrexham County Borough. Over the last 18 months waiting lists have fallen from 4,000 to around 3,000 but the council is keen to reduce that further.
“Between February and May last year we carried out a consultation with tenants and council members as part of our review of our allocations policy,” said Wrexham County Borough Council deputy leader and Lead Member for Housing and Climate Change Cllr Dave Bithell.
“One of the changes we are proposing as a result is the end of local lettings policies.
“For example we have blocks of flats that are solely for over 50s. If this is approved by Executive Board then those policies will be lifted and they will be open to everybody.
“That’s a situation we are going to have to manage in order to increase turnover of housing stock and reduce the waiting lists.”
Cllr Bithell admitted he had reservations about the changes the report suggested, but insisted they were necessary due to the demand for social housing in Wrexham.
“I have lots of concerns about it,” he said. “But we will have to manage that as a council.
“I have to look at it as a lead member. We do get difficult cases in individual areas where we have a mix of older people and younger people and sometimes it does cause conflict.
“Sometimes ourselves, the enforcement team or even the police need to get involved to sort it, I’m not going to say it doesn’t happen.
“But we’ve also got 3,000 people on the waiting list. We can’t hold properties back we need to house people.
“There will be a review after 12 months by a working group set up to monitor those issues that we hope don’t arise from the changes.
“If they do, there is a robust process in place to address it.
“It has been a long process, it’s taken us 10 months to get to this stage,” he said. “But I think we are ready now to make a decision. It’s been a really rigorous process.”
Other changes include amending eligibility rules. Currently tenants awaiting a house are rated in priority Band Two if they have been living in a flat for at least two years and have a child aged under 10. That will change to families with children under 16.
For tenants with medical or welfare considerations the Band Three rating will be scrapped, as so few applicants were allocated under it. Band One and Two will remain for those who qualify.
There are also plans to further penalise people who deliberately damage their homes to try to move up the priority list by moving them into Band Five – the lowest level – instead of Band Four and many aspects of the allocations policy will now specify priority for people already living within the county borough.
Decisions on housing allocations will remain independent of councillors, managed through the council’s central allocations team in Lambpit Street for fairness and consistency.
Council leader Mark Pritchard praised the officers who had drafted the new policy, saying he felt it brought more fairness to the social housing system in Wrexham.
“This was long overdue,” he said. “It was one of those jobs that was seen as too difficult to do so I’d like to thanks the officers and Cllr Bithell for bringing this forward.
“I will be supporting this because I think it is right for this council. We have to treat everyone equally and fairly regardless of age.
“I wouldn’t want to stigmatise the young in this either, when ewe talk about issues between younger and older tenants in social housing sometimes the older tenants cause problems too.
“It’s a mixed bag and we have to manage it.”
If approved by the Executive Board on Tuesday, January 21, the new allocations policy will be introduced in March, so tenants can be informed of the changes before the start of the new financial year.