Date: Fri 6th March, 2009
Venue: Celtic Manor Resort, Coldra Woods, The Usk Valley, NP18 1HQ
Number of Guests Attended: 150
Cash-strapped builders, housing associations and the Welsh Assembly Government need to work more closely together and come up with innovative ways to provide more homes in the downturn.
That was one of the conclusions of Insider’s first breakfast debate on affordable housing, attended by 150 decision makers from the construction and property sectors, housing providers and the public sector.
Lisa Dobbins, Welsh Assembly Government housing programme manager, said: “Things are difficult now. It comes back to needing more innovative solutions. What we need is a set of solutions that meet the needs of people who need homes and of the people in this room.”
Dobbins, who is in charge of implementing the Assembly Government’s Essex Review of housing, added that the Assembly had just finished consulting on a discount home-buying scheme for Wales.
The panel were divided on whether the Assembly should be spending much of its extra housing cash on unsold private housing stock. Peter Cahill, chief executive of Newport City Homes, said there should be more emphasis on acquiring land to secure future housing supplies.
But Andrew Lycett, chief executive of RCT Homes, backed the Assembly’s move. “We talk a lot about partnership,” he said. “Builders are our partners. If we allow our partners to go to the wall, we haven’t really shared the risk. It is a stabilising factor that will allow us to plan better over the next two to three years.”
Independent building consultant Ken Thomas said the economy would benefit if more cash had gone into building. “There is an acute housing need, but there should be some going to new build as well,” he said.
Dobbins said the Assembly would increase the proportion of the extra £42m Strategic Capital Investment Fund money for new housing in the second and third years of the package.
There are plenty of opportunities out there for affordable housing providers right now – too many, in fact, according to Thomas. He said: “I think it is paralysing the system to a degree. I think there needs to be a way of identifying which ones you can secure quickly and be able to deliver. I am not in favour of large-scale land banking for housing associations, they should be looking at smaller schemes.”
The breakfast event was sponsored by Austin:Smith-Lord, Principality and the Celtic Manor Resort.
