More homes, more quickly

Plans setting out how the Council intends to deliver the next phase of its ambitious housing development programme, creating another 1,700 new homes for the city have been unveiled.

Against a backdrop of extreme pressures on housing availability in Cardiff, the Council is seeking a new housing partnership scheme arrangement to ensure more high quality, energy efficient homes can be built at volume and pace.

The partnership scheme would be the second of its type the Council has embarked on, following the success of the award-winning Cardiff Living partnership with national developer, Wates Residential. That £320m 10-year programme is delivering 1,500 new homes, including around 800 council homes and 700 homes for sale across 26 sites.

The Council has set an ambitious target of delivering 4,000 new homes for the city – 2,800 of which will be council homes, via various routes including Cardiff Living, package deals, buying property directly from the market and an additional build programme involving development sites being delivered on an individual basis.

A second partnership programme would enable the council to progress its pipeline of projects more swiftly, maintain consistency in the quality of build from site to site and achieve better certainty of delivery amid a challenging climate.

Cabinet approved the implementation of a second Cardiff Housing Partnership Programme including the commencement of a procurement exercise to appoint a development partner at its meeting today, Thursday, November 17.

Cabinet Member for Housing and Communities, Cllr Lynda Thorne, said:

“Our Cardiff Living partnership with Wates Residential has been a real success. It has been recognised as a genuinely innovative development programme and has won a number of prestigious awards. The partnership approach has reduced delivery risk and improved the speed of process taken to get projects on site.

“Current housing pressures mean that we are being challenged to deliver new homes more quickly and experience from our existing partnership arrangement provides strong evidence of the benefits of delivering the remaining sites in our programme through a new partnership arrangement.

“Not only has the Cardiff Living scheme delivered new much-needed, high quality, energy efficient homes across the city to help increase the supply of affordable housing, it has raised standards across homes for sale and social housing. It has delivered much wider benefits for our communities including significant social value and local investment by supporting local supply chains and contractors and delivering a package of training and employment opportunities.

“A second partnership programme could also allow us to collaborate with partners, potentially bring additional sites into the programme to make it an even more attractive proposition for potential bidders and increase the supply of affordable homes across the city.”

Cabinet also approved the list of specific development sites to be included within the second partnership programme and delegated authority to the Corporate Director for People and Communities in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Housing and Communities to manage all matters relating to the procurement process.

Following the conclusion of the tender process and evaluation of bids received, a decision will be brought back to Cabinet to give approval to appoint the preferred bidder.

To read the full report, visit here.