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Council aims to create 250 affordable homes

Cardiff Council is aiming to create around 250 affordable homes as quickly as possible to help combat the continuing housing crisis.


Some property and land-purchase proposals, approved by the council's cabinet to help alleviate pressures when the authority declared a housing emergency in the city in December, are now no longer available, so new plans have been brought forward.

 

The cabinet has approved recommendations to buy two commercial properties - one which could be converted to deliver 79 new homes and the second to deliver 20 new family apartments, ranging from one to four bedrooms. 


A vacant development site close to these two buildings is also available and would allow the council to rapidly expand its successful modular homes programme to create around 150 homes for temporary or long-term family accommodation.

 

Cabinet member for housing and communities, Lynda Thorne, said: "The number of single people presenting to our homeless out-of-hours service has fallen from an average of 88 a night at the end of last year to an average of three per night currently, and rough sleeping has decreased from 43 in December to 23.

 

"But the emergency isn't over by any means and the cause of this incredibly difficult situation we are in, which is fundamentally a lack of affordable housing, remains.

 

"There are still 1,028 single people in temporary and emergency accommodation, 122 families living in hotels and 595 families in standard temporary provision.  And different challenges, that have emerged since December, putting further strain on already overstretched services now need to be addressed as well."

 

In the medium term, the council plans to construct around 350 more modular units on vacant sites via Cardiff Living, its new homes partnership programme with developer Wates Residential.


Welsh Government has approved and given funding support for 35 units at Ty Ephraim in East Tyndall Street, one of the council's existing provisions for single people, and discussions are ongoing around further sites.

 

In the longer term, the council says its house-building programme will continue to deliver new council and affordable homes for sale at 60 sites across the city, with the capacity for more than 4,000 new homes. Currently 1,127 new council homes have been completed and 368 more units are under construction on site.

 

As well as approving the new property and land acquisitions, the cabinet approved the continued use of hotels in the city as temporary accommodation for a further 12 months.

 

Although the council has ended the contract with one of the hotels used for families, two are still in use and will continue to be needed in the shorter term.


🏠 If you're keen to help tackle homelessness and poor housing, Lisa Curtis from our Premium Partner Lisa Curtis Estate Agents, is taking on the Welsh Three Peaks Challenge for Shelter Cymru.

 


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