National Assembly for Wales

Welcome, everyone, to this meeting of the Local Government and Housing Committee. We haven't received any apologies from committee members for today's meeting, although one of our members, James Evans, will be joining us a little later on. Carolyn Thomas is substituting for Sarah Murphy. Sarah Murphy is now a Minister in the Welsh Government and has recused herself from all committee business, but remains a member of the committee until a replacement is elected. The meeting is being held in hybrid format as usual, and public items will be broadcast live on Senedd.tv, with the Record of Proceedings published as usual. The meeting is bilingual and simultaneous translation is available. Are there any declarations of interest from committee members? There are not.

We will move to item 2, our ninth evidence session with regard to the committee's work on social housing supply. I'm very pleased to welcome our witness joining us virtually, Sorcha Edwards, secretary general of Housing Europe. Croeso, Sorcha. I will begin with an initial question before we turn to other committee members. So, firstly, as an overview, could you summarise the major challenges in increasing social housing supply across Europe?

Yes. First of all, it's really an honour to be here, and I'm very happy also to follow up this session, sharing more information, if there are specific asks, from my colleagues in our research observatory or our policy centre, so please make this a to-and-fro, a quite informal session, so that I can also hear more specific asks from your side, so that I don't just go off the target for you.

So, in terms of obstacles at the moment—. And just so you know, Housing Europe represents quite a mixed bag of contexts, as you can imagine. We go from countries that have only 2 per cent social housing, and it's mainly purely municipally managed—so, if you think about Portugal, for instance; Italy is also under 10 per cent public housing, the so-called case popolari there; Belgium is also around 6 per cent; right up to, let's say, Denmark, which would have 20 per cent of what they call 'general housing', which is how we would understand social housing; and, in Austria, in some cities, up to 60 per cent of limited-profit housing and municipal housing. So, it's a really, really mixed picture we have. So, what we can see is that there are definitely some common issues coming up—obviously, the construction materials. So, it has slowed down or delayed up to 30 per cent of projects, let's say, in one of the biggest countries in Europe—so, 30 per cent of the social housing projects are slowed down because of the mixture of the increase in construction material costs, but also the cost of capital. So, basically, this macro-financial situation is impacting all of our members, from Norway to Spain to Portugal. The latest figure we saw, for Copenhagen, is that they would normally expect to build 27 per cent from the limited-profit sector, but they are down at 6 per cent in the last three years. So, the cost of capital, cost of construction materials, interest rate are really impacting almost all of our members.

Of course, this is to different degrees, because what we see, for instance, in Spain and Portugal is that they have got a big injection of capital, following COVID, from the EU. So, they are some of the only countries that have managed to really maintain the rate. Keep in mind that this is a small sector. It's quite residual, the social housing sector in Spain and Portugal. However, they have managed to keep up the rates because—I don't know if you followed it—the EU had a recovery plan after COVID and, depending how much your GDP was hit by COVID, you got an injection of capital. And there the social housing and the renovation rates have remained quite high because of that increase in public support coming from the EU. But, in general, in Scandinavia and also the Baltics, there has been quite a freeze. We fear also in, let's say, Estonia, for instance, or countries even closer to Ukraine, there has also been the impact of the war being close and that causing also so much insecurity and a freeze on construction.  

So, it's a mixed picture. As I said, there are a few exceptions. So, in those countries that have had that increase in public support, which is large in proportion to the size of their sector, we see still quite a lot of activity. In the Netherlands, also, there is a lot of political will there to get off gas. The social housing providers there have been subject to what they've called a social housing tax over the last 14 years. That was removed by the last Government last year. They also had no housing Minister for quite a few years. But, because of the housing crisis in the Netherlands, particularly impacting workers and students, there has been a removal of this social housing tax and a reinforcement of public support. So, we do see that extra support has helped to offset the impact of the macro-economic conditions. Also, we hear back from our Austrian members that the Government has stepped in with more subsidies to tackle the high interest rates and the high cost of capital. So, that has offset a bit the slowdown. So, we see some policy measures kicking in to basically bring about relief.

So, those are, let's say, the macro-economic conditions, and we have also more precise data from our observatory that really shows the drop-off with each country. But, what we also hear, particularly in the social housing sector, is the freeze on land take, particularly where you have Governments now—. There are some Governments who have come into power who are, let's say, not very socially minded, and we see that the land restoration law or the freeze on land take is also incentivising in some cases—in Flanders, for instance—a slowdown in the delivery of social housing, as well as the capacity for numerous, or the space given for, potential complaints from local councillors, which also slows down planning permission. So, we hear it quite a lot, there's quite a lot of frustration and even calls for the EU to do something about it, which would be outside EU competence, this very exaggerated time it takes to get planning permission and to get projects up and running for various reasons— objections. And that also applies to the transformation of existing buildings—so, brownfield developments. So, in general, there's this frustration, and even, say, in looking to an outside power, outside their country, to say, 'Look, we need to get that planning permission off the ground', or, 'We need to get permission for the transformation of existing buildings.' So, that's also what we hear back—so, apart from the financial issues, just bureaucratic issues that are slowing down the kick-off of projects. So, that's a bit of a taste of the feedback we are getting on the ground from the different countries.

Okay, thanks for that, Sorcha. It's useful to have that overview. I guess we're familiar with a lot of the factors that have come into play, economic and otherwise, over recent years, but in terms of political will, which you mentioned, I guess, would you say that that ebbs and flows across Europe, depending on which administration is in place, which political party is governing at any one time—you wouldn't point to any particular trends there, would you, in terms of support for social housing or not?

So, actually, for 13 years, there was no meeting of the housing Ministers at the EU level. And I think that that was a bit of an indication of the trend to basically stand back from responsibilities on housing in quite a few member states. What we saw as well, obviously, was the growth of the EU to the east. And, obviously, that's going back some time now, but when we went from the EU 15 to EU 27, most of the eastern countries did not—. Most of those had abandoned, actually, to a large extent, public housing policy. So, even in those with strong co-operative sectors, there's been a slow erosion of the co-operative sector. Let's say in Poland, we see a weakening; in Czechia, we've seen a weakening; in Hungary, there is an almost non-existent co-operative sector. So, what only would exist there is a municipal—some municipal housing, but a very small percentage.

So, what we have seen, and that's also because of Ukraine, is that even those countries that thought that they didn't have to engage on housing, and that the market would take care of it, are just waking up to the reality to see that they were not able to cater for new households moving into cities. So, on new household formations, there's not the affordable housing there. When Ukraine happened, they weren't able to absorb people arriving from Ukraine, so I think that's been one of the drivers. There is much more of a realisation now across the political spectrum when we hear debates in the European Parliament—so, a much bigger realisation; it's the highest profile we've seen of the housing crisis ever that's been spoken about at European level, and the Ministers are meeting again. So, that happened three years ago for the first time and then every year since. 

The question is now—. So, Hungary now holds the presidency of the EU. You're probably aware how controversial that is, because of the rule of law issues, for instance the criminalisation of homelessness in Hungary—it's still enforced, sadly. But what we are seeing is that Ministers are sitting around the table again and finding that they have very, very similar problems. So, those are problems with bringing down the cost of new delivery so that there's more of a push on modular construction. I think you call them modern methods of construction in the UK.

There's also a realisation that short-term letting is in direct competition with long-term affordable renting in attractive areas. There is also a realisation that, in many countries, they actually need the types of housing associations that we take for granted, so that you take for granted in Wales, in the Netherlands, in Denmark. So, I think it's certainly a lesson that we should all learn. We take a lot of the structures of the governance we have for granted, and in the countries that are coming up now, they actually only have private real estate companies and the Government. So, they're struggling to find a governance method to fill in that gap. Ukraine is an extreme example now, but we are being contacted now because Ukraine literally has only—so there's a huge amount of funding coming off this and a £50 billion facility approved. Obviously, a lot of that is just to keep the country running and to fill in the gaps in the national budget. However, part of it will go to redevelopment, so reconstruction of housing, but also there's a commitment to try to develop a type of housing association or municipal housing structure, because they have nothing in between the Government and private real estate companies. So, this we see to different extents in different countries. Even now, Lisbon is struggling—you may have followed—an average flat now in Lisbon, two bedrooms, costs over 100 per cent of an average income, so they have a severe problem there linked with short-term lets and linked also with golden visas to a certain extent, and linked with investment coming from outside of Portugal. But what they are now doing is inviting in private real estate construction companies to solve the problem. Well, often, the issue is that it's on their terms. This is what we are dealing with now. We have been asked for advice. How can we shift the balance, though? It's not just about real estate companies getting a sweet deal, a tax deal, it's just sticking in there for nine years and then out you go to the free market.

So, these are the type of conversations we're having. Cities are looking for solutions. Private real estate developers are saying, 'We're the ones who can save Europe from the housing affordability crisis.’ And what we are looking at potentially is resorting to very short-term solutions.

So, yes, a big part of our role is trying to highlight the type of function—housing associations like those you have in west Wales highlight that they are important, a vital part of the solution to the housing crisis, and we need a critical mass, so at least 20 per cent, to create options for people who have been pushed out of the market. Obviously, more and more people, so elderly, key workers, young couples, people also with illness, people who are really not being catered for by our housing systems—housing associations play a really, really vital role in giving dignity to those people. But we also have more studies to show this, how it can create a balance to the prices in the private market, so we’ve seen an important study from Austria: per metre square of limited-profit housing that you have, what impact that has on the private market.

So, in short, to answer your question, there's a huge recognition of the housing crisis across the political spectrum. The issue we have is that on the solutions that are being provided, there are a lot of opportunities and short-term solutions being offered, and not a lot of—. The capacity on the public side to manage those offers must be reinforced so that we don't just go to further transfer of wealth to the private sector without having a decent medium, long-term solution for the general interest. So, this is what’s keeping us busy now, to make sure we go in the right direction and that local authorities are in contact with each other, that the housing providers are in contact with each other, and not just being blindsided by private interests.

And the other point is that we have the recognition from all political spectrums that this is a huge problem. The solutions they've been coming up with, being proposed, are very divergent, but also the causes—. This is also another issue, so if there's quite a lot of scapegoating, blaming on the green transition, so blaming the house prices on the fact that we have, of course, this existential crisis that we all face where we have to reduce our carbon emissions. And that’s being conflated as one of the reasons of the housing crisis, because it's through that there has been some exploitation of this where we've had cases of renoviction, for instance in Germany, where houses are renovated and then rents are no longer affordable, particularly for people on benefits, who then have to move elsewhere. So, there's been some exploitation and badly implemented greening policies around Europe. So, this is being also scapegoated by some forces now in the Parliaments to say we have to stop greening and this we are firmly against. We have to find a way to bring down carbon emissions, but maintain affordability in a clever cost-optimal way. And, of course, migration is also being blamed for the lack of housing, just a classic example of pitting poor against poorer in our societies.

So, it's big attention to the sector, and some countries really showing the way. Quite a few member states, quite a good few countries have really stuck to their commitment to housing delivery—if we think of Austria, it's always given as a good example. Denmark as well have a very solid revolving scheme where they manage to maintain this 20 per cent of housing, general housing, they call it, so social housing. Then we see some countries with some turnarounds, so, for instance, Czechia has now really woken up to the challenge and is now starting off an affordable and social housing programme for the first time. You have a new housing fund also in Slovenia that is delivering cost rental housing. We have big efforts from Ireland, although they don't manage to take the edge off the prices, so they're investing up to €5 billion annually and working on trying to come back from what is a problem that is basically paralysing the country. But they have developed a cost rental scheme inspired by Netherlands and Austria, so moving away from not only having just residual social housing for the poorest, but also catering for the regulated rental housing perpetuity for middle-income groups. So, Ireland is working on that. Catalonia has also been an example where they have tried to diversify and bring in different types of rental co-operatives, also for not only the lowest income groups. So, we've seen them really make amazing progress there. As I said, Netherlands, as a result of its removal of the social housing tax, is also now committed to address what they call the squeezed middle, and they are launching a new programme to address that squeezed middle, really radically increasing the rate of construction, but also their target group, so increasing the target group, which is limited to the target group at the moment of €36,000 a year. They are also making efforts to regulate what they call mid-income private rents.

So, again, it's a mixed picture with the big new recognition of the problem, and, basically, countries just scrambling to find the best solutions. Some have a solid base to work on, others not so much. So, fascinating times, but, of course, not fascinating for those who are stuck out in the cold or sleeping in the street.

Yes. Okay, Sorcha. Thanks very much for that. That's very useful background for us, I think. I'll just bring in other committee members with questions, starting with Siân Gwenllian.

Yes. In Denmark, they have been exemplary in a number of areas. It's one of our references, also, for the energy transition, so the regeneration of rundown areas where they are renovating but also bringing up the average income in the area by 10 per cent, working with local businesses and socioeconomic players to also have links with re-inserting into the labour market. But also, they work a lot with very detailed data as to why people are furthest from the labour market, and they work with a buddy system to engage with people. What they have discovered is that, very often, it's health reasons, and the housing providers are stepping in with more customised health centres in the social housing districts.

In terms of the delivery of social housing, Denmark has been very successful because of their revolving fund, which is limiting the weight on the public budget. That has been in place for many decades already. They also have a so-called tenant democracy, where the tenants are sharing in all of the decisions around the developments in housing, apart from who can come into the housing. And on homelessness, they have a clear objective, although they didn't start with very high levels. But they have a clear objective, also, of prevention. So, they work with an early warning system, particularly with young people, because they identified that where you might have high numbers of so-called 'couch surfing' young people, they have a high risk of going into homelessness. So, they try to have this early warning system to help those people who are in pre-homelessness. 

They also have managed to work with youth homelessness to link them up with education, so helping them to get their education grant, even though they may not have managed to enter off their own bat. However, they work and they give them access to their very generous education grant and link that with housing, also, to try to prevent youth homelessness, but also linking education. I think what's always quite inspiring in Denmark is that there's a more holistic system of identifying the causes of exclusion, whether that's health, or whatever the family reasons are. So, I think that this holistic approach has been key. Obviously, there's the collaboration, not leaving housing providers on their own, but working, also, with the local authorities. Having said that, you have to keep in mind that they have over 20 per cent social housing, so you have a good base to work with.

In Finland, similarly, they have a strong delivery of—. They also don't use the term 'social housing' in Finnish. But they have also up to 20 per cent of limited-profit and municipal hybrid housing provision. But they've been exemplary in housing first. From what we've seen, it's really impressive there and I think it's probably worth Wales looking at that. There's also the training of social workers—so, linking up social workers with people working in housing provision and the cities. They've actually developed housing first training. Because I think what we often see—and a recent international OECD study has shown this—is burnout, low income and low job satisfaction among social workers. I think this can often be the missing link in that we are neglecting those people who are the key to linking up people with housing. So, they're some of the points that come to mind regarding Denmark and Finland. But there's a lot of other information that can be shared, indeed, on the Finnish housing first approach.  

I've managed to visit some of the housing first in Finland. What did take me by surprise is that, in many cases—. The Y-Foundation is one of the leaders there. They go for standalone complexes, which often wouldn't be, let's say, the practice of housing first that's put forward as good practice in other countries. In the Netherlands, the examples I've seen would be maybe one family coming from homelessness in a block of others that don't, and then that family would have the support from an association to support them with potentially extra needs. But the idea would be not to have a concentration, whereas in Finland I've seen blocks of people in housing first with the caregivers living in as well. So, it's different. They have varied solutions, but the Y-Foundation is an excellent reference.   

Just before you go on, Siân, I think Carolyn Thomas would like to come in at this point. 

Sorcha, you said, rather than calling it social housing, they call it housing first or municipal housing. What name do they give it? 

It's just a language issue. If you translate the Danish, it's called 'general housing', if you actually Google translate, and in Finland it's 'right of use'. 

We're just trying to get round that stigma of calling it social housing. 

Because they never did. Yes, I know. And it's something we struggle with here, because now, indeed, we've sort of exported the stigma from our English-speaking world. And it's an issue then, because at EU level they tend to use those same terms and it carries the stigma, whereas we have started to use a little bit the term 'general interest housing', which isn't very catchy.  

Can I just ask you as well—? The Scandinavian countries that are doing well seem to invest more in public services generally. In Austria, there's 60 per cent social housing. Am I correct in saying that they also look at building schools and health facilities, transport as well, around them? It sounds like they do that in Finland, you said, and Denmark—you know, that health as well within housing. So, is it that they invest more in public services generally? And how is that paid for? Is that paid for from within their Government by higher taxes? Maybe others know this, but I don't. Or is it coming from EU funding? Just generally, how is it funded? Thank you.

There wouldn't be a big portion of EU funding, because that's always determined by the levels of GDP. So, they wouldn't enjoy enough—. Most of the EU funding tends to be on innovation, that sort of area. And just a point on Austria, it's 60 per cent in the city of Vienna. It would be less around there. And in Austria, it's a mix between—. They call it 'limited-profit housing'. They're limited-profit co-operatives, which have an obligation to reinvest. They had something similar in Germany, and they took away the limited profit law. They're actually looking to reintroduce it now, because it hasn't gone well. Because, basically, if you push the housing association to be more independent, use private capital, you have a financialisation of the sector that's very hard to come back from, and that's a little bit what has happened in Germany in some cases.

I definitely don't have the figures on investment in health and social services, but I think you've hit the nail on the head there. I think, very often, they can rely on well-funded services, and also rent subsidies in the case of Finland, which supports the system. And, in the case of Denmark, they also rely on a strong social sector and then a good infrastructure. So, indeed, I think you've really got an important discussion there. You can never take housing just on an island; it's linked with the whole ecosystem. This is something that we've always noticed in the UK. Now we don't have the UK housing associations on board, but the integration of social services and housing, because they weren't being delivered satisfactorily, was something very specific in the past with the UK. I must say that it is changing in some countries now, but, of course, it has a big role to play.

I should mention, indeed, not to give such a rosy picture, that the current Government in Finland is planning to cut the housing agency's staff by 40 per cent. The recent Government is to the right of the political spectrum, and these are the sorts of discussions that are going on. They also want to cut the whole programme of right-of-use housing, so we have to keep a close eye on Finland. This might swing back. But nothing is a given. 

Thanks very much. We'd better press on, because we've got limited time left, I'm afraid. Siân.

Do you also refer to the problem of under-occupancy? Is this also part of that issue, let's say where you have an individual living in a three-bedroomed house? This is also part of it. 

Yes. I was visiting Paris Habitat, the biggest public housing provider in France, and 30 per cent of the apartments were under-occupied, with 60 per cent of those people being over 65. We see this in many countries. There are a couple of good examples. There's a scheme in the Netherlands where they are stepping in and they are converting the homes. They are transforming the homes so that instead of one house, they are converting it into two apartments. It's only the start of a pilot that we've come across. There are rightsizing schemes. I've seen a good one in Cork, where empty nesters, let's say, can swap their home for a smaller unit with, also, potentially, access to healthcare, if needed. 

But, of course, the delivery of those smaller units also needs to be done—there's also a lack of those. There's one very nice scheme in Cork that we could give you the context for, which could be worth looking at. It's also not very far from you. We also see the intergenerational projects. There's one in Valencia, where they developed apartments for elderly people with a quota for young people as well, where they also would have, potentially, lower rent for young people, in exchange for some provision of different types of assistance to the elderly.

Another example is OBOS, a big co-operative in Norway. They have a living lab now where they are trying to check—so, they're looking at co-living—to what extent people are happy to share space, so that it's not something that's imposed on people. So, they are developing different models and testing them to see to what extent is shared space something that elderly people actually opt for. But, again, this implies the delivery of those developments with smaller units. So, indeed, everything from house swapping to conversion of individual homes and rightsizing schemes. So, there are different types of solutions, but it's the shared issue you have.

Okay, Siân. Okay, Sorcha. Thanks very much. We'll move on to Lee Waters, then. Lee.

Thank you. Just two very quick questions, really. Factual ones. If you can you tell us a little bit about what's been referred to as cost-based social housing and the role that plays, and also—

Sorry, I missed a word there. Sorry.

I was asking—. I wanted to find out more about what's referred to as—

I just heard 'the role that plays'.

Can you hear me now? Can you hear me?

For some reason, you're just breaking up slightly—yes, I can hear you.

Okay, I'll keep trying. I wanted to ask about cost-based social housing and what contribution that makes, and also, if you could as well, a little on the role that private finance plays, because our social housing in Wales tends to be largely funded through direct public grant—part of the evidence we've been hearing is there's greater opportunity to leverage borrowing or private finance—and how that compares with other parts of Europe.

So, the cost-based social housing you referred to, is that cost rental schemes?

Yes, that's right.

Yes, we do have a comparative study on that—I think it could be very interesting—that our observatory has done with six countries. So, they have analysed the cost rental schemes in six countries. Are you still hearing me there?

Yes, we can hear you.

So, basically, it's very much inspired again by the Austrian model, but I must—. The Swiss also. The co-operatives are based on a cost model, but of course that also implies that, when the costs go up, the rents go up. So, in Switzerland, for instance, Zurich has a target of 35 per cent co-operative housing by 2030. I was curious to hear about how they were managing to deliver that in the current environment. The detail was that they already owned the land, bought 100 years ago, so they didn't have to deal with current land prices. This is why they were managing to maintain reasonable costs. We see also the cost rental scheme in Austria is putting pressure particularly in—so, the subsidy schemes depend on which region you are in Austria, it's not federal, and in some regions the rents are actually going up and pushing people out of the limited-profit housing because the cost has gone up, because it's cost rental housing.

So, it can work very, very well. What you have to keep in mind is that you do still need subsidies for the upfront delivery and to maintain the affordability. So, I hope that answers your question. So, yes, in Austria, in Vienna, they stepped in to cover this cost so that the tenants wouldn't have to deal with it, but in other bundesländer they didn't. So, indeed, there are risks also attached to cost rental, but the difference is—. How we feel is that, for instance, in Portugal, Italy, Belgium, it's not cost rental, it's based on income, and it's much smaller than other sectors, so it's a more residual sector, where tenants are paying very, very small amounts. You also have high levels of lack of payment and you don't have a mix of incomes, and you're completely relying on the exchequer, exchequer borrowing, so it means the sector is very, very sensitive to changes in Government and changes in available finance. So, what you see in different countries is different ways to make the system more resilient and less sensitive to political changes and public finances.

So, that's the difference indeed between an income-based model and a cost-based model. You usually have a mix, you're able to charge higher rents, so it depends on your regulatory system, but those rents, ideally, should be supported also with some rent allowance. Then private finance is used in various different ways. What's important is—. What I always think is it's not really the finance, it's the regulations, at the end. So, if you can have a solid regulatory system that's going to work for citizens and is not subject, then, to unaffordability, there's a weight of different ways that private finance is brought in. So, in France, they have a savings book that all of the population can open. In Ireland, we would have had a post office account that your granny opened for you in the local post office, but there they have that all over France, the livret A, the red A book, and that then is private finance, basically, off balance sheet, that is then used to deliver social housing. So, that is one model.

In Denmark, the tenants also give a contribution when they're moving into the apartment, and the same in Austria, so it's also a source of private finance. Then, to varying degrees you have—. Indeed, the revolving system in Denmark is based on bonds issuance, so they're coming from capital markets. Then we also have—. In the Netherlands, basically, you only have a public guarantee, and the rest is coming in from public interest banks, but primarily private finance. So, in the very mature systems where they already have a lot of solid financing, they leverage, it's used to lever, to bring in, private finance by maintaining the subsidies—so, keep in mind you need to have subsidies as well to support lower incomes. So, it's a very mixed picture, and we do have a study, 'Housing 2030', which covers all the different financing schemes as well.

Okay. Thank you. Can I just ask, in terms of the appetite of authorities to borrow, we've had some evidence that the impact of inflation and the volatility of interest rates are discouraging housing co-operations even more from being willing to borrow. Is that a pattern you're seeing too?

Unfortunately, yes, both for renovation and new construction. The cost of capital, inflation, the rates are impacting and slowing down project delivery, both on the renovation and the new construction side. Unfortunately, that's a reality we're seeing everywhere, and I think it is a pattern. What we see is—. If you look back to 2008, so the great financial crisis, we saw, for instance, the French social housing sector really brought forward to the whole construction sector, because they were able to maintain the delivery rate—

I think you mentioned the—

—they were able to maintain construction activity.

Sorry. I think you mentioned that Denmark relies on bonds. Are you still finding that, even with longer term public-backed debt, there's a reluctance to leverage that because of the financial instability, or does that provide a greater level of assurance?

Yes, I don't want to—. I'm not 100 per cent sure on that, but I have seen, as I've said, that, in Copenhagen, we went down from 27 per cent to 7 per cent of delivery. So, there are different factors, I think, impacting that. It's also because they have a cap on how much the construction can cost in the general housing sector. So, basically, you can't go above a certain amount because of construction costs again. So, I think it's a mix of different factors there, so I might have to check precisely what are the different factors that are slowing down.

Okay. Thanks, Sorcha; thanks, Lee. Sorcha, just in terms of use of publicly owned land for housing, I wonder if you could—I'm afraid we've reached the end of our allotted time, so we'll have to be very brief—but, in terms of guiding principles for Governments in terms of the use of publicly owned land, and possible delivery models such as development corporations, is there anything that you'd say about that? We've heard, for example, that Copenhagen has a strong example of such a development corporation. Are they seen as a productive and successful model?

In terms of land—. Firstly, if we don't have much time, we also have in our ‘Housing 2030’ study a review of the different policies. They also mention community land trusts, which is a way of preventing speculation, to stop speculation on land. What works in many countries is clear quotas, so, social land allocations, so that, if you develop public land, there has to be a percentage of affordable, social and different types of non-market housing.

Yes, okay.

And—. Yes.

Yes, okay. Thanks, Sorcha. Carolyn, did you want to quickly ask some questions?

I did have a question about skills and construction. We've got a skills shortage in Wales, and I was wondering how that might be tackled in Europe, in any of those countries there. It does sound like you're having issues there as well, but any ideas?

Indeed. Do you talk about renovations and also construction?

Yes. So, we've got a general skills gap, construction gap. It's not just materials, but also a skills gap in construction as well.

Yes. We work a lot also with the construction sector here, and it's a shared challenge. We do see some potential in modular renovation and modular construction. What we do see, though, is that—. So, we work a lot on innovation projects, and we have many pilots with different types of prefabricated renovation solutions. These would be solutions where you are 3D scanning the building and semi-building—I think you've definitely seen examples in the UK and Wales as well—building most of the components in the factory, installing them with the photovoltaic inserted, with the ventilation inserted. But we're not seeing a real take-up on the market. And it's a study we are currently doing to check is this actually something that's going to actually catch on. Because what we are seeing is that they're still too expensive, these types of renovation toolkits, let's say. Perfect for fully funded projects, but not catching on. But it is being focused on as one of the ways to tackle a skills shortage. So, we'll be working a lot on that to check is there a fundamental flaw in the approach, or is it something that could address the problem.

Then, of course, we would also work with the trade unions here, and they would raise the issues on the quality of jobs within the sector, something that's often the elephant in the room when we talk about skills as well in the sector; it's about the quality of the jobs, and salaries. Then building information modelling, BIM, is a big part of it, which I'm sure you're familiar with as well, so the potential coming from digitalisation to change, in a way, the nature of the skills that are needed in the sector—so, building information modelling and levels.

So, yes, it’s a bit of an irony. There's more and more pressure on the construction sector now to cut down on embodied energy, so, to look at circularity and reuse of materials. Now we have the 2040 carbon emissions targets, and there's a big focus on the potential of the construction sector. So, there are more and more demands. However, we don't see innovation in the sector keeping up with those demands. But I think it's something—. There's a big push for recognition or renovation as a sector on its own, an industrial sector on its own, and the need for massive support for that sector so that we can make it more attractive, make it deliver what we need and bring in the skills. But it's one that's a big topic here also at EU level.

Okay. Thanks for very much, Sorcha. I'm afraid that's all we've got time for today, but we will write to you with some further questions, Sorcha. Thanks very much for giving evidence to committee this morning. We will send you a transcript to check for factual accuracy. Diolch yn fawr.

Great, yes. Thanks. 

Okay. Diolch yn fawr. 

It's been a real pleasure. Sorry not to be there in person and good luck with your—. I'm happy also to share the results of your consultation with others, because you're definitely not alone. And, indeed, I don't know if you've seen, Ireland have just had a commission running over the last two years, and this report has information that the Government now will potentially use to guide their strategy. So, it could be something useful for you.

Yes. Okay. Diolch yn fawr, Sorcha. Thank you very much. Okay, committee will break briefly until 10:35.

Item 3 on our agenda today, then, is our tenth evidence session with regard to our work on social housing supply. I'm very pleased to welcome, joining us here at the Senedd, Rebecca Kentfield, who is the affordable housing project manager for Faith in Affordable Housing, and works for Housing Justice Cymru. Rebecca, welcome to committee this morning. I'll just begin with a general overview question, really, which is: could you tell committee how Housing Justice is bringing forward land for social housing in Wales?

Yes, of course. So, on the Faith in Affordable Housing project, what we do at Housing Justice Cymru is we work with religious and faith-based organisations across all of Wales to identify surplus or redundant assets they may have, because, as I'm sure everybody's aware, church congregations are falling across Wales for various factors and reasons, so a lot of buildings and land that they historically held are no longer of use to them or of desire to them. So, we sort of help them to identify those and then we match them up with a registered social landlord in that region where that asset has been identified to broker a deal and create opportunity to build social housing. And we have a map that Knight Frank helped us produce that maps all the assets across Wales that are owned by those organisations, so we have an overview of what the opportunity is in Wales for that kind of building of social housing.

That's quite comprehensive, then, really, Rebecca, is it, that mapping exercise?

It is, and what's fantastic about it as well is Knight Frank were able to overlay the map with other data. So, we have the information as to is this a church, is this a piece of land, who is the owner of that, the acreage of that. But then also we have layers as to flood risk, housing needs assessment, and phosphates they recently added for me. It's an interactive tool; you can add to it, you can chop and change it. But, yes, it's very comprehensive and really helpful.

Okay. Thanks for that. Do you think that more could be done to bring forward smaller sites for development within existing communities?

I think so, because much of what I do is the smaller sites. Obviously, there aren't many huge fields and acres of land and massive buildings owned by churches; there are certainly some. But, by and large, I deal with smaller sites and they tend to be in the heart of their communities. What we're seeing is the church wants to do the right thing with those sites, and they bring them to me and they have the aspiration for that to be social housing and for that to give back to that community. But, once we go down that path with an RSL, we soon find that that's not really manageable, it's not really doable. When you look at how the standard viability model stacks up for RSLs, they often tell me, 'We have a huge target to reach, and the amount it would cost us to develop this small, infill site in this community, to create, like, four or six units of housing—best-case scenario—costs us the exact same amount of money as it does to do 25 homes over here on this massive greenfield site. So, Bex, we have to prioritise this one, I'm sorry'. And that means that those smaller, infill sites unfortunately tend to either sit there and go to rack and ruin and create a bit of an eyesore for that community, and be really unfortunate for that community, or they may sell to a private developer for a second home or something, and so it's not necessarily providing the best thing for that community that it could.

Yes. So, as you say, the comparative cost of one development compared to another is an issue there, Rebecca. So, it's the sort of subsidy element, is it, that helps bring forward those smaller sites, wherever that comes from? In the case of the church, obviously, it's their land, and then, presumably, is that gifted, as it were?

It's not gifted, no. So, charity law dictates that a charity must sell any asset for best value, and traditionally that was interpreted to mean market value. Housing Justice Cymru and Faith in Affordable Housing, we have worked with Wrigleys Solicitors to create guidance for churches and charities on that, because, essentially, when a charity sells to another charity—and not to get into the nitty-gritty—there are ways to interpret that and there are ways to interpret best value to not necessarily mean financial but to, indeed, mean social value. So, it's not gifted, and there are ways for churches to agree a price that works for everybody. But the way in which the churches' financial models tend to work as well is they are selling an asset over here to finance the retention of an asset over there, and that often is a grade II listed asset that's really important to Wales's heritage. So, it's not necessarily them trying to make a profit for any kind of reason; it's them trying to, again, give back to the community in other ways by putting that finance elsewhere. So, that's how that works.

Yes, I see. Okay. Thank you very much. We will move on to Siân, then. Siân Gwenllian.

Yes, absolutely. The standards are so important, and we feel really strongly that having high standards for social housing is absolutely vital and puts Wales way ahead of the game in the UK. But, in terms of flexibility, I think there's a lot of pressures on social house builders to meet not just the DQR and also the net zero, but you know you've got to fit in then with the placemaking agenda. In Wales, you've got to meet an array of different needs boiling down to this one site, and often those don't stack up. So, it's about creating a road map for RSLs in terms of how to navigate the future generations Act, the placemaking agenda, the net-zero targets and the housing standards, and, particularly when we're looking at smaller, infill sites, if we're looking at the future of social housing in Wales and the need to have housing in line with the placemaking agenda in communities, in the heart of communities, with access to all of these public transport links and amenities and schools, then we need to look at these existing buildings in these towns and communities rather than looking at creating brand-new communities over here, on this field, and there are so few massive sites like that that we can develop.

So, when it comes to the housing standards, I think it's about appreciating that all of these are phenomenal and important standards—the standards, the net zero, the placemaking agenda, the future generations Act are all really important—but when it's an RSL trying to make something work with all of those sometimes competing priorities on them, it's often almost impossible to move forward and create that housing, and sites often fall down. I recently had a site in a local authority get denied at pre-application stage. There's a housing need, everyone's on board, the commissioner is really keen, but, unfortunately, one of the planning officers felt that the demolition of that church would be a loss of heritage under the future generations Act, and, actually, there's evidence that there's plenty of provision in that community of other community assets and other heritage, and the church themselves do not feel that that's an important heritage asset from their perspective. But you can kind of see how one of those decisions, under that one thing, has eliminated the potential of that housing there for that community.

Yes, unfortunately, it does always seem to come back to cost, and that's absolutely what I hear across the board from our RSLs. I have some figures in front of me. So, to meet some of the housing standards, it can add £7,000-£12,000 per unit onto a unit of housing, best-case scenario. So, yes, by the time you take all these things into consideration and look at how that stacks up, then the standard viability model doesn't allow you to continue and apply for social housing grant because it's concluded that cost per unit is not going to work.

That's the question, isn't it? I'm not going to pretend I have that answer. I'm sure there are people more equipped to answer that than I am. I don't believe we can move forward without answering that question, unfortunately. And I think it doesn't answer where that money can come from, but it's looking at the standard viability model and considering what we mean by 'viability' and what we mean by 'value', and moving away from this idea of financial value as defining. There may be an argument for somebody doing more of a social investment consideration of, 'It may cost more here in the long run to do this, but what does it save our NHS 10 years down the line?', and such. Yes, that's what I'd say. It's a hard one.

Yes, I know.

Lee.

Just very briefly, I was fascinated by your example of the housing officer using the future generations Act. That's a very unusual way for the future generations Act to have been prayed in aid. I just wondered, Chair, if we could have just a note or just some further information for us to follow that up, because that does seem rather random.

Unfortunately, it's not random, in my experience.

Really?

Yes. So, you can submit, and RSLs do, especially those that work quite closely with us, because they're familiar with what tends to come back at pre-application. So, they do their due diligence, and they present, 'Here’s what else is provided in the wider community'. And we have letters from the church property officers themselves, across denominations, that we might submit to planning as well, saying, 'This is not an important asset to us. We have this beautiful church over here, but, this one, knock it down. It's a liability, it's dangerous, it's impossible to do anything with and it's not particularly important to our heritage.' I can think of maybe one or two sites currently where we're dithering over whether to even go down the planning route in the knowledge that, perhaps, there are conservation officers that would block it, and the cost to go down that route, knowing it's likely to be blocked, means we may as well forget about that and move on to the next.

Specifically, they're using the future generations Act as cover to do that.

No, in those instances, I wouldn't know about that.

Okay. I'm just interested in the way that the Act is being quoted there, because that does raise some questions about the consistency of the way the Act's being used, because it does seem local authorities are using it when it suits them.

Yes, I would say I see a lack of consistency. I've written down the words in my notes of 'like a lottery', depending on which local authority you're in. It feels a bit like a lottery as to what will come back.

Okay, perhaps we can just have a little side note on that.

Yes, if we could ask for the detail of those examples, that would be very useful. 

Sure, of course. 

Thank you very much. Carolyn. 

Just keeping on planning, planning conservation officers can sometimes be very keen on conservation and very strict, in my experience. [Laughter.]

Yes. 

But I've not heard the future generations being used before, so I'd like to follow that up as well. That was quite a surprise. So, in your analysis, to what extent is social housing being held up by planning and consenting processes? And what do you think could be done, possibly, to improve the system?

Yes, so I would say social housing is absolutely being held up by the planning process. And, again, they're all really important and well-meaning processes, and I wouldn't want to dismiss them at all, but I think that the way they operate as a whole has not necessarily been configured in a way that's fruitful for social house building, let alone at scale.

So, I've had some local authorities report to me that planning turnaround can be as long as three years, due to under-resourcing and other constraints. On average, reportedly, it's about 21 months. I have a site I'm aware of that, if it's already allocated in that local development plan, if there is a new local development plan being developed, that site that's already allocated must be built and must be developed, because it can't be rolled over. And that's all well and good if planning was operating at the speed at which it needs to, but currently it's not. So, we have landowners—we have church landowners—saying, 'I have to be willing to enter into a multi-year conditional contract with an RSL', and the landowners who come to us are already at the stage of, 'This needed to go yesterday, financially, for us.' So, you have really well-meaning landowners saying, 'We simply cannot afford to embark on this year-long journey—years and years and years—because of those time constraints.' 

In terms of what is delaying it, I hear reports—and they're all things that you've heard before, I think, in this committee—that there's under-resourcing, but, largely, it's just very complex. I've been in post 18 months and I'm still just getting my head around the complexities of it. You've got sustainable drainage systems, and they have to happen simultaneously. In some sites that I'm working on now, the planning happens in one local authority and SuDS happen at the other one, and the idea of those working in an aligned way is a stretch. You've got the guidance on phosphates, which of course is important, but has caused delays.

And then you've got the range of surveys with each development: you've got topography; you've got the ecology ones—the bats and everything; the biodiversity and the archaeological. And, again, when you consider something like bat surveys, they have an expiration date—rightly so. So, again, if you're thinking about the years it takes to get planning, and the fact that, particularly with an older building, you need a winter bat survey and a summer bat survey, you get those aligned, you go to pre-application, and then you wait three years. By the time it comes back, you've got to do those bat surveys again.

The costs of these surveys fall on the RSL, and that's £15,000, £20,000—I've had as much as £70,000 from an RSL—and that cost, ultimately, falls to the tenants. That's the risk of the tenants' money, because if it doesn't go through, which in that case it didn't, they're not going to get a social housing grant, they're not going to be able to proceed. So, that's a high financial risk for the RSL. So, you can see why they don't want to ever take it, and they just sort of dismiss those sites. But if we dismiss those sites, in 10 years we're going to have housing along the M4, and these little pockets and corridors on these big fields, and our town centres and our community centres will be empty.

If there was a vehicle bringing all those together, looking at sites, that might be pre planning, 'These are okay', do you think that would be helpful?

I believe so, yes. I think that looking at all the different considerations when you go to pre-application and when you go to planning, and all the different elements and factors and timescales, and considering how they can be streamlined, or in some way made to work in a more complementary way with one another, I'm sure would help. 

It's been suggested using planning at corporate joint committee level, which is like a regional level. 

Okay. 

Do you think that would help, or do you think there would still be issues because of having that local democracy still, in your experience? Don't worry if you can't answer that. That's fine.

I don't think I can answer that. I'm really sorry.

That's fine. That's just something that's been brought up previously.

Sure, absolutely.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you, Carolyn. Rebecca, that £70,000 cost figure that you mentioned, that was for the process, going through the various aspects of the planning process—

Yes, that was viability costs, yes.

Yes, £70,000 and the decision was not to allow it to go ahead anyway—

There were other reasons for that one to fall through as well. The landowner went in a different direction. So, I'm not saying that that was just a planning thing that knocked that down at all. But it's an example of how high costs can get in doing the viability.

Yes, okay. James.

Lovely, diolch, and apologies for my late arrival. I want to talk about land, if that's okay. Welsh Government do own an awful lot of land, and local authorities own an awful lot of land as well. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on what you think the guiding principles should be for Welsh Government in terms of managing publicly owned land. It would be good to hear your thoughts on that.

Sure. I think at Housing Justice Cymru we feel quite strongly that land maps are great, as our map itself demonstrates. I feel that a full transparent stock take of publicly owned assets and land would be really important because it would allow you to take a step back and look at opportunity and see where things align, because right now things seem to be happening in silos, but if there is a hospital that is no longer serving a purpose next to a school that might be closing, next to a church community hall that's no longer serving a purpose, that all presents a huge opportunity, but right now we don't know that that's all happening, because we haven't got an overall look at all those assets.

There are other people around the table who know better than I, but the land division in Welsh Government should be doing this work currently, shouldn't they? When land does become available, they should be the ones who are telling people that there's a hospital coming up, and actually breaking down those silos. Do you think there's more work that the land division within Welsh Government could be doing to actually deal with this issue?

So, at Housing Justice, we have been doing a bit of work with the land division, and we know the aspiration is there, and certainly I think there is some of that work being done, but I think until there are resources there to have that full map and that list and that visual, really, that database and the bigger picture, it's probably—. I mean, I don't want to speak for the land division, but you know—.

That's fine. Just out of interest then, in England they had Homes England, which is at arm's length from Government, which is a delivery arm to build homes. Do you think we need something similar here in Wales?

I think, definitely, a top-down approach is going to be most effective, yes, because right now it does seem like the onus is fully on the social house builder to find the land, get everything to stack up and make those houses happen, whereas scrabbling to try and find land and then competing for it is just not working long term, so, yes, I think potentially that could be helpful.

Okay, lovely, and my final question—I'm rattling through them here. Talking about land ownership, as I said before, there are vast swathes of land out there that are owned by public bodies and actually no-one has a clue who owns half of them. The place where I'm actually in the middle of looking to buy a property has a big piece of land to the side of it that is actually owned by the Welsh Government and not owned by Powys County Council. I thought it was owned by Powys County Council, but it's not. Do you think that the ownership of public land should be more available, so people can actually know, 'Well, yes, Welsh Government own that bit here; my own authority, Powys County Council, own this bit', because there are vast parts of different local authorities too, aren't there, because the housing department might own a piece of land, the highways department might own a piece of land, and then the property department might own a piece of land? Do you think it should become more publicly available who owns what, because at the minute it seems to be locked in archives in county halls, doesn't it?

Yes, I definitely would say so, because again it presents that opportunity to consider where you might not realise, and also I could see it potentially speeding up the planning process. Because just from my perspective, I may send an RSL a church that's come across my desk and sort of say, 'What do you reckon?' and then the desk work and the resource on their time to do all those searches and find out, 'Well, who owns this highway and who owns this ransom strip and what is happening up here?', that's time consuming and that's money again to the RSL, whereas if that was publicly available and free, not only could we identify opportunities much quicker, but also when stuff came across our desk, it wouldn't be such a time-consuming process to work out if that's even viable and should we consider it.

Lovely. Diolch, Cadeirydd.

Thank you, James. Altaf. 

Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you very much, you know—I didn't get it right. There are many churches that have been purchased by other faith groups and they may not be part of that community. My question is: how can we engage with communities when developing social housing in their area? And do you know of any good practice as to how we can deal with it?

Yes. I think what's really important from our perspective when we're speaking specifically about churches is that it's an emotive topic. Sometimes the congregation themselves have come to the conclusion that there are few of them left and they'd like to see the building going back to the community and they ask what they can do about it. But sometimes it's a decision taken at a different level and the community find that hard to come to terms with. But what we always find is really helpful on our projects is just laying out the options for that building.

So, by and large, in our experience, that building is becoming a liability, it's no longer serving its community in its best form. It may be a dangerous building, and the future options for that building are closure and slow crumble and becoming an eyesore, and even becoming a target for arson or the kinds of things that no community wants; or it could be, ideally, if the funding was there, repurposed and renovated to a standard to create some kind of community building; or demolition for housing, and nobody likes to see an important community building being demolished, but if that means that families in that community can have their children down the road in that housing, then that, long term, is a huge benefit for everybody.

So, I think it's just about being really honest from day one about what the options are, whatever that building is, and bringing them along on that journey. We certainly try to engage with the planning department as well and the commissioners as early as possible, to find out what is best needed in that community and meet that need as well. So, I think just open and honest conversations from day dot, really, would be my answer.

Thank you.

All right, Altaf? Rebecca, could you give us some idea of the scale, the potential of church-owned land for social housing development in Wales? What's in train at the moment, what has been achieved, and what do you think the potential is as we move forward?

Yes, of course. So, to date in Wales—I just had to change this, because we've just completed on a new site—we've built 117 units of housing. That's very modest considering the targets in Wales, but there is certainly opportunity to scale up. That's across 10 sites, and we have a further 12 under construction right now, and a further 34 across two sites that have yet to begin construction, but have sold into RSL ownership now. At any given time, I probably have about 50 more on my database. Unfortunately, a lot of those do get aborted, for the reasons we've discussed today. 

I know from my mapping tool that churches and religious organisations own 3,290 hectares of land across Wales. That includes built-on land—4,364 known places of worship. I haven't filtered that out for churchyards and graveyards and such, so I can't tell you exactly how much of that is viable, although we are doing that work with the Bevan Foundation, and I'm happy to share it. But I think it just provides a snapshot of what could be possible if we considered all of these other publicly owned pieces of land and buildings as well. 

And just to go back to our point about smaller sites and infill sites, there is this opportunity there to consider. Wales has the highest number of pre-1919 buildings in the UK. So, that's around two thirds of our building stock. So, it just comes back to that question of: are we going to keep building brand new over here and try to find this land that's becoming fewer and further between, or are we going to consider what we already have built and what buildings already exist and consider what it's best to do there, probably on a case-by-case basis?

Yes. Siân.

Diolch. Absolutely. So, first of all, I've been using 'churches' as a catch-all term, I apologise for that, but I absolutely mean chapels as well, and we do absolutely deal in chapels as well. They tend to be—. Often, there are three or four, in some Welsh villages, little chapels, and they again present huge potential, because currently we only have to drive down the road to drive past closed-down chapels, don't we, so it's really important to consider?

In terms of units, so churches own schools, community buildings like community halls and, of course, churches and chapels: are they more appropriate for social housing? Currently, working within the standards and everything that RSLs have to consider, no, and by and large, because of that, if our sites do go forward, they tend to be demolition, but there's huge potential there for that to change. And in terms of what we've built, there are 117 units of housing. So, that's everything from two, three, four-bed houses to one-bed flats. We're in talks with certain housing associations about the potential for children's homes and hostel-leaver homes and all sorts of things. So, whatever an RSL can build is appropriate on church land as long as the viability stacks up. Does that answer your question? Did I understand it correctly?

Yes, thank you.

Altaf.

Just a quick point on that. Many churches are surrounded by cemeteries. How do you identify those and what do you do there?

Yes, that's a really good question. Depending on the age of the cemetery, we can do certain things. So, in sad cases where perhaps a cemetery is no longer in use and the people that might visit those graves are no longer around to do so, we can fence that off and that remains in the ownership of the church. And that's, again, why it's really important for them to have reserves of money to maintain things like that. And then, if we can fence that off and utilise the building over here, then that's really beneficial. There are different things that we can do with churchyards and graveyards, yes.

Is there a time period—how long the cemetery has not been used?

Good question. In the examples I'm thinking off, nobody has told me a time period, but the property officers know that—they're really in tune with their assets and they know what's going on there, yes.

Yes, perhaps if you could send us a note on that—it would be useful. Rebecca, could I just ask you as well, when we look at that scale of what the project involves and the contribution it could make to providing social housing in Wales and meeting need, it seems to me that when you were talking about villages, we're familiar with some of the issues in rural Wales, coastal Wales, where sometimes fairly small areas, small villages, nonetheless haven't met housing need. And it's very difficult, particularly difficult perhaps, to find land to develop there because of the nature of the areas—they're very scenic, the land is very precious, and obviously, rightly, there are strong policies in place to protect and preserve that land. So, in those sorts of areas, where perhaps populations are small and where a small-scale development, such as the redevelopment of a church or a chapel site, could be significant in meeting housing need in that area, and because of the lack of perhaps alternative land, would you say that perhaps what you're doing is more significant for those parts of Wales, or—?

I would say that if we were able to do as we wish to on this project, then, yes, absolutely. Unfortunately, those smaller sites rarely go past the conversation with the RSL, because the RSL will turn to me and say, 'It just doesn't stack up; we cannot do this', because they're rightly trying to meet the brilliant housing target of 20,000 homes. But the way in which that trickles down is on the ground, those projects don't happen, and then, yes, the longer term effect of that is: why are those four, five-unit schemes not as important as those bigger schemes? Because that's housing where people want it, in the community they've always lived. And if that option too for housing gets missed, again in a few decades' time, there's going to be nothing there, because people will have to leave because the school's shut, and they'll have to move down the road somewhere else, and then the high street dies, and then nobody's there anymore. So, it comes back to that bigger picture, thinking if we can enable—and I don't have all the answers—those small sites to go forward, I think there's definitely appetite from RSLs there; it's just the financial risk on them, and the lack of social housing grants for those sites.

Okay. Siân?

Diolch. Absolutely. We have yet to work with a community group, but that's not for lack of trying. So, we work quite closely with Cwmpas, and they're fantastic in the support they provide, and that door is always open and we're always sort of considering what opportunities are there. And there's one site in particular I'm currently trying to make stack up. But by and large, my experience of that has been that the community groups aren't there yet. They're not established yet, they don't have the funding behind them yet, and there are a lot of—. At least, the approaches I've had have been sort of, 'We would like to do this, we have the aspiration to do this, we're thinking about creating a co-operative, we're thinking about that journey', and, again, it comes down to that time frame, because that's two, three years before they're ready to do that, and the churches and chapels I'm speaking with, again, they needed that asset gone yesterday, really. So, the time frame of that isn't quite working. But it's not to say that we're not open to that, and I think it comes back to—as a lot of these committee answers have come back to—the importance of that mix as well, because, absolutely, there should be the opportunity for community right to buy, and there should be those opportunities, but there should also be, alongside, truly affordable social housing, and it has to be a balance, because sometimes, with those communities set-ups, there may be criteria that need to be met in order for somebody to live there, and that can accidentally be exclusionary also. So, it's just about finding that balance and I don't have all the answers on that. But super open to working with those groups, and I agree that there may be more flexibility and opportunity there.

Okay. Rebeca, thank you very much for coming in to give evidence to committee today. You will be sent a transcript to check for factual accuracy. Diolch yn fawr.

Diolch.

Okay, item 4 on our agenda today is a paper to note, which is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Housing, Local Government and Planning to the Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure Committee in relation to the Welsh housing quality standard. Are Members content to note that paper? I see that you are.

Item 5, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting and from the next committee meeting on 18 July. So, that's to consider the evidence that we've received today, and also our approach to the future work of the committee. Is committee content to do so? I see that you are. We will move to private session.