Part of 3. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 3:07 pm on 11 December 2018.
Diolch. Today is a historic day, so I'd like to start by honouring Prince Llywelyn, the last native prince of a sovereign Wales, who was killed on this day in 1282 at Cilmeri.
Cabinet Secretary, I recently visited a house in Ely that was starting to look like a jungle. The garden was so overgrown that you could barely see that there was a house there. In the garden, rubbish was being dumped, the windows were smashed in and plants were growing into the house, and it's one of 1,300 empty properties in Cardiff that a family should be living in.
Cardiff has the worst record in Wales in bringing empty houses back into use—less than 1 per cent in 2016-17. You're letting them get away with that, but at the same time letting the Labour council build thousands of new houses on greenfields that local people simply cannot afford. So, why aren't you demanding that Cardiff Council use their powers and get these empty properties back into use, because nothing shows the neglect of our communities more than houses being left to rot for years and years?