The deputy housing minister for Wales has warned that the cost of upgrading council estates to reach the Welsh housing quality standard is likely to be almost three times the figure previously calculated.
Welsh Assembly minister Peter Black said £2bn was a more realistic figure than the official estimate of £750m.

Black was speaking after officials at the assembly had studied the first of the housing business plans that councils are being ordered to draw up.

He said: "The last figure the administration quoted was £750m from the civil service report of the working party on securing additional investment in local authority housing through private finance. That figure was presented in September 1999.

"We are still waiting for all authorities to come back with their business plans, but it looks as if the figure will be near £2bn."

Black believes the publication of figures for each council will lead to a demolition of the log-jam that has meant that very few Welsh councils have transferred their housing stock.

He said: "Most of the councils have refused on ideological grounds because they do not want to give up control. But the assembly's new community-mutual model, which gives power to tenants, plus the transfer in Bridgend, should ensure that we get more transfers."

The assembly's demand for housing business plans is part of its strategy to get the 22 Welsh councils to reconsider the future of their estates.

The Welsh administration is demanding that council estates attain the standard by 2010.

Announcing the instruction to prepare business plans, Edwina Hart, assembly minister for finance, local government and communities, said: "There is a need to move forward quickly on developing a more rigorous and structured planning regime for investment in local authority stock."

Black blamed the rocketing cost prediction on previous figures being based on a study of "only a very small sample of houses".

Source

Housing Today