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Rural Wales faces affordable housing crisis

Wednesday, 4 June 2008 12:00 AM

A report suggests rural Wales faces losing a generation of young people as average house prices are five time the average income.

A lack of affordable homes and social housing, means thousands of young buyers are locked out of the housing market in the principality - in a situation repeated in many rural areas of England.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation report into rural housing found numbers of the rural population are prevented from getting decent and affordable housing within or close to their local communities - and so areas are losing the next generation of young people.

However, it is estimated there are 18,000 empty properties in rural Wales and the foundation is calling on the Welsh Assembly Government to promote ways of bringing them back into use.

Derec Llwyd Morgan, chair of the Joseph Rowntree commission, said: "The commission found that there is a huge unmet need for affordable housing in rural Wales.

"Meeting the need requires urgent action. Powers exist at both local and national level to improve the situation, but a marked response will require cooperation, innovation, strong leadership and great political will."

The report also calls for a significant proportion of second-home council tax to be used by rural local authorities to respond to housing needs in their areas.

In response to the report, Welsh deputy minister for housing, Jocelyn Davies, announced pilot scheme providing £5,000 grants to first-time buyers where the difference between average incomes and mortgage costs is highest.

She said: "I am the first to agree that the supply of affordable housing in rural Wales needs to be increased.

"We are committed to achieving this by all means available."

The minister added: "We have promised to deliver 6,500 new affordable homes, and we commissioned the Independent Essex Review, to look at ways we can achieve this.

"We have increased the grant available to build social housing for rent by £30million and we will look at government landholdings to see if they are suitable for disposal to meet the need for affordable housing.

"And we are seeking the power for Local Authorities to suspend the right-to-buy in areas of housing pressure."

Daniel Barnes

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