Cardiff Council’s ‘Capital Ambition’ targets at least 1,000 new council homes to be completed by May 2022
With plans in place to deliver a total of 2,000 new council homes in the longer term to meet increasing demand for affordable housing.
Cabinet will consider the strategy to deliver the new council homes at its next meeting on Thursday, May 16 including the development sites identified for the council’s additional build programme and the standards which all schemes should adhere to, the Cardiff Design Standard.
Cabinet member for Housing and Communities, Lynda Thorne, said: “Our new strategy represents the largest council housing building programme in Wales and a £280m investment into building affordable, high quality, sustainable and energy-efficient homes across the city.
“Housing need is increasing year on year so it’s essential that we have plans in place to deliver new homes for people who need them. It’s also important that our new homes are the right homes and target specific needs, such as catering for larger family homes, being energy efficient to help tenants tackle fuel poverty and being more accessible to provide better spaces for people and reduce the need for future adaptations.
“There is also a real focus on new older person housing, providing flexible accommodation that allows residents to live in their own homes independently for as long as possible.”
The council has identified a number of routes for delivering new homes including through the Cardiff Living scheme with partner developer, Wates Residential, open market buy-backs, developer package deals with housing associations, conversion of council buildings and meanwhile use of land for innovative housing solutions such as refurbished shipping containers.
The council’s additional new build programme is also set to deliver more than 1,100 new homes, with plans for 450 homes at Dumballs Road, 250 homes on the former Michaelston Community College site in Ely and the regeneration of the Channel View estate in Grangetown to create a further 250 new council homes.
Many of these routes are already progressing well with Phase 1 of the Cardiff Living programme nearing completion, 37 buy-backs completed by March 2019, the conversion of a former children’s home into eight accessible flats and a package deal in place with Cadwyn Housing Association that will deliver 30 new council flats in Splott. In total, 65 homes have been completed, 203 are currently on site, with hundreds more with planning approval, at the planning stage or in the pipeline.
The council has also been awarded four Welsh Government Innovative Housing Grants to help deliver its Passivhaus scheme in the Heath, a highly energy efficient modular build scheme in Plasnewydd and two schemes providing temporary accommodation for homeless families using refurbished shipping containers.
The report also seeks approval for the next phases of the Cardiff Living scheme, following the success of Phase 1. A Cardiff Design Standard was adopted for the Cardiff Living scheme and an updated Cardiff Design Standard is being developed to be applied to all council new build schemes.
Councillor Thorne added: “We’re setting high standards for ourselves to deliver new homes in volume and at pace and as well as helping to tackle housing pressures in the city, we want to ensure that the new homes we deliver are high-quality builds, designed to regenerate existing estates and create well-connected, sustainable communities across Cardiff.”
