The Welsh Government's Rural Housing Policies

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:46 pm on 15 May 2019.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 2:46, 15 May 2019

Yes, it's certainly an interesting point. I've just received—in fact, I was holding it in my hand—the Help to Buy Wales evaluation report, and one of the things we are looking at is what we will replace that scheme with or whether we renew it and what we do with the renewals. One of the things I'm very interested in doing is seeing what we can do to bring empty properties back into use and to encourage development outside of the conurbation areas to support the needs of local people. We're also working very hard with the registered social landlord providers and councils, depending on which is the housing authority in your area, to make sure that they're bringing forward the social housing plans necessary to enable local people to stay in their local communities. I'm very keen to work with local authorities and RSLs in this regard. We are particularly looking to have development suitable for local people to stay in the communities they want to live and work in and make sure that we build those communities as sustainable communities inside the community envelope.

So, I'm very happy to say that I'm happy to look at anything in that regard. I have the report, and you can see I was just starting to read through the meat of the report to see what's being recommended there. I've had meetings already with several local authorities in north Wales around the need to get social housing and affordable housing in its wider sense into those committees as well. So, I'm very happy to look at it, and I'd be happy to have the Member involved in that as we take it forward.