03/05/2013

30-Year Social Housing Plan For Wales

The Welsh Government is to inject an extra £4m into new social housing over the next 30 years.

The government said the package is part of a wider £400m fund to help build new homes.

The extra money will assist with the construction of 1,100 social housing homes in the next few years, with the view of having 7,500 homes built by 2016.

Finance Minister Jane Hutt said: "As a Welsh government, we are determined to use the tools currently at our disposal to support the housing sector in Wales by boosting the supply of affordable housing in tough times

"We are pulling the stops out to get the money into the system."

She added that plans were currently being finalised for "a new innovative mechanism for financing social housing", which would make £140m available.

The government has been working closely with Community Housing Cymru (CHC) on what has been termed a Welsh housing bond, which will allow cash to be raised to build the new 1,100 properties.

Ms Hutt added that even though the government has had its spending budget slashed by 30% for next year, it still needed to build at least 1,000 new social housing properties a year.

The announcement follows the government's decision to drop a scheme to help homebuyers.

Last month, it said it was scrapping its NewBuy scheme which was designed to help people get high loan-to-value mortgages and would have supported the creation of 3,000 homes.

Ministers said the industry withdrew its support after similar plans were announced by the UK government.

(JP/CD)

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