Party now the majority in Wales after last week’s local elections
Plaid Cymru is seeking to form a minority government in Wales following last week’s elections, with plans to establish a new development corporation.
Led by Rhun ap Iorwerth, the party pledged to legislate a right to adequate housing in Welsh law and build at least 20,000 new social homes by 2030 in its manifesto.
To do this, it plans to establish Unnos – a national development agency – to accelerate the delivery of social housing by working with local authorities on land assembly, planning applications, funding and supply chains.
This follows the Scottish government’s announcement in January that it would be setting up its own Homes England-style quango – More Homes Scotland.
Plaid Cymru also said it would introduce measures to protect renters by abolishing no-fault evictions, limiting annual rent increases and giving the legal right to have a pet. This would mirror England’s Renters’ Rights Act, which came into force at the start of May.
Meanwhile, it has pledged to roll out a national retrofit programme, aiming to address fuel poverty and improve the energy efficiency of owner-occupied, rented and social homes.
After returning 43 of the 96 Senedd seats in last week’s elections, the party’s victory brought an end to Labour’s century-long leadership.
Speaking at the Chartered Institute of Housing’s (CIH) Tai conference last week, Welsh political commentator Will Hayward raised concerns that no political parties campaigning for leadership had costed manifestos.
He also said that many of Plaid Cymru’s housing promises are “based upon getting concessions from Westminster that nobody has ever managed to get”.
At-a-glance: Plaid Cymru’s manifesto for housing:
- Legislate for a right to adequate housing
- Build at least 20,000 new social homes by 2030
- Continue to call on the UK government to unfreeze local housing allowance to narrow the gap between rent and housing benefit, reduce the risk of homelessness for thousands of families, and ensure it keeps pace with rising rents
- Embed a trauma-informed and person-centred approach to tackling homelessness – ensuring new homelessness legislation is implemented effectively and kept under review
- Support and build on services to deliver housing adaptations and home improvements for older people
- Speed up remediation work on properties with unsafe cladding and other fire safety defects, including by strengthening oversight and enforcement where developers and freeholders fail to meet agreed deadlines
- Use a regular Welsh Housing Survey to improved data standards
- Reduce regulatory barriers to building and buying-in more social homes, including through more balanced energy efficiency requirements
- Encourage investment in housebuilding by Welsh pension funds and examine options for developing new financial products through the Development Bank of Wales and by better leveraging of Welsh government borrowing powers
- Review the funding formula for local government so that it better reflects the real cost of delivering services in different parts of Wales and introduce a funding floor to ensure that no local authority is disadvantaged
- Reduce the complexity and bureaucracy of planning processes, providing greater clarity and firmer guarantees on consenting timelines and extending permitted development rights, including for community-led housing and energy projects
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