Statement From Cwmpas – Affordable Community-Led Housing

We read a report from Nation Cymru on 23 April: Plans rejected for farmstead-style community

The report details the reasons given by Swansea Council for refusing an application for community-led housing in South Close, Bishopston. As experts providing support to many community-led housing groups across Wales, including Gwyr Community Land Trust, we wish to correct a misapprehension expressed by planning officers and reported in the Nation Cymru article.

The report says:

“Officers went on to say affordable housing was welcomed but that the proposal put forward did not meet the relevant definition because the trust wasn’t associated with any registered social landlord.”

The assertion that a proposal cannot meet the definition for affordable housing unless the applicant is associated with a registered social landlord is not correct.

Planning Policy Wales, the Welsh framework against which all planning decisions are assessed, was changed in 2024, and gives community-led housing organisations the same status as housing associations and local authorities in their role as affordable housing providers.

The relevant legislation states:

“4.2.27 Affordable housing includes social rented housing owned by local authorities and RSLs and intermediate housing where prices or rents are above those of social rent but below market housing prices or rents. Affordable housing may also include that owned by community-led housing organisations where this meets the Welsh Government’s definition set out in paragraph 4.2.26 above.”

We recognise that Swansea Council Planning Department detailed further reasons for their decision. We expect Gwyr Community Land Trust to appeal the decision.

Wales is in the midst of a housing crisis.

We do not have enough affordable and social homes to house the people who need them. When demand exceeds supply, market values and private rental costs increase, leaving local people unable to purchase or rent a home.

In planning terms, affordable housing means homes that are available to people who can’t afford regular market prices. That applies not just when the home is first occupied, but also for anyone who lives there later – what is known as ‘affordable in perpetuity’.

Cwmpas’s Communities Creating Homes programme is currently supporting fifty community-led housing groups in Wales.

Please direct any questions to co-op.housing@cwmpas.coop.