New figures released today show that new affordable houses completed by Registered Social Landlord (housing associations) in the last quarter of 2013 was down 16% on the previous year, despite the fact that there are nearly 90,000 households on social housing waiting lists.
The Welsh Housing Minister has set a new target of 10,000 new affordable by the end of the Assembly term, yet these figure reveal that during the October to December quarter 2013-14 only 159 new dwellings were built by housing associations.
Commenting on the figures, the Welsh Liberal Democrats Housing Spokesperson Peter Black, said that if this became a trend it would be very worrying:
“We need to see housing associations build more homes, not fewer. I accept that public money is short and their grant has been cut but this has more than been made up for by additional capital allocations and the new bond scheme which has been adopted.
“A lot of public and private money is now going into affordable housing. We need to see the results in more homes that people can live in.”
