Housing Regeneration

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:40 pm on 15 October 2019.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:40, 15 October 2019

I thank the Member for those questions. It's always been the policy of the Welsh Government that brownfield sites should be the first priority in terms of redevelopment. But she asks me what I think the reaction of local residents will be, and I think what local residents will say is that more houses are needed in their areas for their families and for people who don't have the housing that they need, and most people recognise that the house that they themselves live in was once a greenfield site itself. So, actually when you talk to people about the housing needs that are there in local communities, what they recognise is that we are talking about their friends, their neighbours, their families and the need for us to invest in housing here in Wales. 

I read the 10-point plan that the Conservative Party published last week in relation to homelessness, and there are some useful ideas in there, which will be common between us, in making sure that the Vagrancy Act 1824 is repealed, and some other practical measures. I've no sense at all of not being willing to take good ideas wherever they come from, and I've always felt that housing is an issue that is largely shared across the floor of this Assembly as a priority for the people that we represent.