Greater joint working and joined up thinking is needed between housing associations and Welsh Government to deliver on an ambitious programme of investment into new and existing social homes across Wales, a conference has heard.
Speaking at the Housing Industry Leaders conference in Cardiff, Iwan Trefor Jones, Chief Executive of Adra housing association called for a “bold, ambitious and innovative approach” to meet an increasing demand for social housing and greater investment in existing homes to meet national environmental standards set by Welsh Government.
Iwan said:
“The Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning has made a clear commitment to building 20,000 new social homes across Wales by 2030. The political will is clearly there and so is the commitment of housing associations to play their part in helping to deliver on this ambition by building new homes, to meet a clear demand for affordable housing.
“There’s a fine balance between building new homes and continuing to invest in our current social homes across Wales. That is why we need some assurances about on-going long term investment for housing in Wales.
“We also need to see changes to the current planning system, to make it easier to identify land for development and to speed up the planning process, so that new homes can be built and contribute to the vision for 20,000 new homes by 2030.
“But whilst we have a clear wish-list for Welsh Government, we need to take a look at our own work within the sector. We need to be bold, ambitious, innovative and forward-looking on behalf of our tenants and wider communities. That will need a lot more joint working – and making sure that our tenants are really at the heart of what we do.
“We must do more to promote local supply chains and keep the pound local in terms of creating jobs and training that would benefit the local economy and the construction and housing industries, but also strengthening the Welsh language by creating jobs locally in our heartlands.
“We need to put more focus on employment and training across Wales – upskilling our current and future workforce. A prime example for us at Adra is our Academi Adra programme. Many of the individuals that have taken part in the employment and training programme have gone on to full time work with us or with our contractors. We need continued funding to create opportunities like this.
“Our vision needs to go beyond housing, in terms of supporting the well being of our tenants and making sure they have quality homes. The sector can increase its influence on issues such as social care, health, economy and the Welsh language. All these things impact our tenants on a daily basis and we need a stronger, more powerful voice as a sector.
“This will help increase our influence, which we hope will pay dividends for our tenants and communities.”
