With the Senedd election looming next year, the Home Builders Federation (HBF) has released its manifesto on addressing the Welsh housing crisis
Welsh housing supply is in crisis, with a 2019 National Plan estimating that 7,400 new homes will need to be created annually by 2040 to address both current and future needs. In the last five years, the average built per year has been 5,300
The HBF has outlined its plan in a report titled Increasing housing supply in Wales, with 12 actions to tackle the issue.
Several barriers to development
Out-of-date Local Development Plans (LDPs), planning process delays, and costs of both regulation and policy are all key issues preventing adequate delivery of new homes in Wales.
Government statistics reveal that the year 2024/25 was the second-lowest for housing delivery since 1974, with local authorities managing just half of their LDPs, and only one authority managing its annual housing requirement in 2023/24.
In May, the Affordable Housing Taskforce released its own report on the state of affordable housing in Wales, finding that the country currently has 3,000 children and 11,000 adults in temporary accommodation.
140,000 people are also on a waiting list for affordable homes.
Besides the above-listed reasons that the HBF found, the Taskforce found that the COVID-19 pandemic and the continuously rising cost of living all impacted housebuilding hard.
The 12 actions listed in the HBF report are:
Delivering more homes
1. Set a national all-tenure target for housing delivery for the next Senedd term.
2. Implement the recommendations of the Welsh Government’s sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) review as soon as possible.
3. Issue standard templates for SAB agreements and Section 278, 38 and 106 agreements.
4. Support SME home builders by requiring Local Development Plans (LDPs) to allocate sites of fewer than 50 units, setting a 50-unit threshold for major developments, and introducing a national scheme of delegation.
5. Ensure that new policy requirements and regulations do not further challenge viability.
6. Inject immediate funding into statutory consultees and SuDS Approval Bodies (SABs) to place them on a sustainable financial footing and minimise delays.
Making the plan-led system work
7. Enable faster adoption of LDPs by increasing the use of short-form reviews and introducing stronger statutory deadlines for adopting local plans once they expire.
8. Ensure the four Strategic Development Plans (SDPs) are adopted before the end of the next Senedd term.
9. Shift to a stock-based approach for local assessments of housing need, addressing historic under-delivery.
10. Restore Technical Advice Note 1 (TAN1) and enable sustainable, policy-compliant sites to come forward outside of the plan-led system where there is a delay in plan review or a demonstrable shortfall in housing supply.
Supporting builders and buyers
11. Develop a roadmap for establishing the talent pipeline needed to deliver low-carbon and energy-efficient new housing.
12. Extend the Help to Buy Wales scheme beyond September 2026 to support first-time buyers, and increase the maximum purchase price in some areas.
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