4.3.27

The policies on affordable and social housing are not considered ambitious enough. Further urgent consideration must be given to finding ways of providing more social housing using existing providers with more funding coming directly from the public sector and well as "windfall " receipts from the planning system itself.
* Social housing accounts for 12% of the total housing stock in Conwy the second lowest in Wales 23% of which is sheltered.
* There were 401 social housing lets in the last year with an average waiting time of 542days.
* 18% of households rent privately the highest in Wales, Welsh average is 14%.
* There were 89 affordable homes built last year
* 233 new house completions
* 1685 homes in Conwy have been empty more than 6 months
* There are 1441 second homes in the county
* 33% increase in homelessness over the past 12 months
* £200k overspend on the use of temporary accommodation by CCBC
* 268 single people 16-24 are homeless. The main reason being family unwilling to accommodate the person further
Housing Need
Conwy CBC is facing an acute housing crisis fuelled in the main by lack of suitable affordable housing and the condition and structure of the existing housing stock:
* 891 households on the waiting list for social housing
* 1 in 10 have been waiting 3 years or more
* 50% of social housing applications require 4 or more bedrooms
* Conwy need to provide 372 new affordable homes each year
* Further 340 applications on the first steps register seeking help to buy.
* No provision of accommodation for rough sleepers
* 1200 houses in multiple occupation
* 308 housing enforcements reports last year
* Fuel poverty: 13% of homes have a EPC rating of E or G; 33% of homes have solid walls and are hard to heat, 25-35% of dwellings are off mains gas
* 9500 homes at significant risk of flooding 8900 at moderate risk.
The shortage of affordable homes to rent or buy is at crisis point right across the County in both rural and urban communities. The scale of the problem is however most acute in the larger urban areas, especially Llandudno, where competition from the tourism sector is increasingly affecting the supply of permanent residential accommodation. The rise in the phenomena of new tourism developments such as Airbnb is making an already difficult situation for local families increasingly impossible.