Social Housing

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:50 pm on 4 March 2020.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 2:50, 4 March 2020

Yes, I absolutely agree, and I recognise the problem from my own case load as well. Of course, we have a whole series of adaptations and care and repair schemes that do attempt to bring current stock up to the standard necessary for people to able to maintain complex lifestyles of various sorts.

In terms of the new build that we're putting together, you will have heard me speak in the Chamber many times of housing for life, and so what we're looking to do, especially with the modular housing programme, is have a house that is built in the first place, so that it has accessible doorways, has plugs at the right height—it has all of those things, but also it can have bedrooms added, and subtracted even, as the family grows and contracts, and has all the things like wide stairs, wide doorways, level—all that sort of stuff. So, in the future, we will certainly be expecting our houses to conform to that, and we are building them. I visited one in my colleague Huw Irancca-Davies's constituency very recently that was conforming to just that pattern.

But in terms of the existing housing stock, obviously that can be very much more difficult, and in some cases impossible to do. But where it is possible, then the local authority should be able to assist through the adaptation scheme and through care and repair. If she is having particular problem with a particular constituent—if she wants to write in and I'll see what I can do.