The overlapping issues of inadequate housing supply, rising house prices, and increasing rents have all contributed to Wales’s current housing crisis.
To provide a strong foundation for a Plaid Cymru government’s response to this crisis, and to drive further action, we will legislate for a right to adequate housing in Wales.
Housing policy will focus on progressively realising this right, addressing homelessness, ensuring housing costs better reflect local incomes, supporting community ownership, promoting the Welsh language and culture, and helping young people remain in their communities.
We will:
- Embed a Housing First, trauma-informed and person-centred approach to tackling homelessness – ensuring new homelessness legislation is implemented effectively and kept under review.
- Prioritise early intervention and the responsibility for specified public authorities to identify individuals who are homeless or at risk of homelessness and respond effectively.
- Work with local authorities to review the effectiveness of existing measures on second homes and holiday lets – including Council Tax premiums, the Article 4 direction, and the Dwyfor Second Homes and Affordability Pilot – sharing learning and best practice, and assessing what further action is needed.
- Work to address the issue of ‘fleeceholds’ – where homeowners are burdened with unreasonable private charges for the upkeep of shared and communal areas – ensuring transparency in estate management and that roads, green spaces, and other essential infrastructure are publicly owned and maintained in the public interest.
- Support and build on services to deliver housing adaptations and home improvements so that older people are able to live independently and safely in accessible homes.
- Act to 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.