Councillor Chris
Evans asked:
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Dear
Cabinet Member,
Your
administration has given money to big businesses to support multi
million pound developments. You have proposed giving money to a
millionaire to develop our historic market, causing many of its
traders anxiety has toward the future and leading to some deciding
to cease trading or to move their small businesses
elsewhere.
Will you
also agree to support the people of Newport who are currently
without a home and on the housing waiting list? Will you look at
forming a council run local housing company (LHC)?
Do you
agree that action has to be taken to remedy the current housing
strategy failure in Newport together with the shortcomings of the
Council’s local development plan (LDP) to provide affordable
homes for local people?
Your party,
nationally, are promising to build a ‘hundred thousand
council houses’ but only 59 were built in Wales last year and
none, zero by your administration in Newport.
It is
perhaps important to facilitate change by supporting private sector
development but we need to support our neighbours who need the
dignity of a home more.
Will you
lead a real affordable home building revolution in Wales, form a
LHC and start building the council homes our people so desperately
need?
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The Leader responded:
Following the stock transfer in 2009 all local
authority housing stock transferred to Newport City Homes.
The council has worked closely with Newport City Homes and the
housing associations (RSLs) operating in Newport to meet identified
need in the city.
Newport has had a very strong record in the
delivery of affordable homes since stock transfer with 1,692
additional affordable housing units being delivered between 2009
and 2019, the third highest figure in Wales.
The primary mechanism for financing new
affordable housing is the Social Housing Grant Programme.
For the financial year 2019/20 Newport was
awarded £6.3 million in Social Housing Grant. This has funded
the creation of 82 new units of affordable accommodation, with an
additional 76 units due to be completed by the end of the financial
year, and a further 161 in future years.
The local authority works very closely with
its RSL partners to ensure a consistent supply of new affordable
housing sites that will allow maximum use of the Social Housing
Grant funding to address the housing need.
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