Yes, minister: what next for affordable housebuilding in Wales?

The panel received more than 60 responses to the call for evidence and engaged extensively with organisations involved in the delivery of affordable housing. As the first review for 10 years, the scope was wide ranging and the panel felt the weight of responsibility to identify challenging and deliverable recommendations for change.

The recommendations flow from the panel’s view that, in order to increase good-quality affordable supply, there is a need to move away from fragmented, annualised funding and rent policy, to a model offering long-term certainty. This will enable delivery partners to plan and invest in building a stronger pipeline of affordable homes.

The panel recommended that a level playing field be created between housing associations and local authorities. This would mean making grant available to help unlock the delivery of homes by combining grant with access to low-cost private finance, to realise the ambition of ensuring partners share government objectives to increase supply.

“Significant challenges lie ahead: the issue of industry skills, capacity and resources is as big a challenge in Wales as it is right across the UK”

Other recommendations included setting up an arm’s-length body to act as a hub for public sector land management and professional services, creating a housing infrastructure and regeneration fund, simplification and enhancement of built standards, and harmonisation across Section 106 and grant-funded housing provision.

It is really pleasing that the minister accepted the vast majority of our recommendations. So, what next? Significant challenges lie ahead: the issue of industry skills, capacity and resources is as big a challenge in Wales as it is right across the UK.

While this creates scope for collaboration and partnerships, it remains in its infancy. One approach might be for the grant framework to be used to prioritise partnership working in recognition of the need to provide outside stimulus.

With housing need outstripping supply and fiscal constraint continuing, it is vital to deliver value for money with grant funding – this is opaque in the current system. At the same time, developing landlords will face pressures to invest more in new and existing homes in pursuit of low-energy, high-quality homes.

Organisational efficiency forms part of this equation, as does the need for an increase in the overall quantum of grant funding for supply. Rents and prices cannot take the strain, however, and the review proposes a laser focus on housing affordability – underpinned by greater dialogue with tenants in designing and implementing rent policy. The report noted good work by Trivallis and Merthyr Valleys Homes to engage with tenants and to seek to understand local affordability issues.

There is no shortage of ambition in Wales to deliver more affordable homes and it will be fascinating to see how the sector responds to the approach outlined by the minister in the months ahead.

Helen Collins, head of Savills Housing Consultancy