MIKE HEDGES AM ASKS WELSH GOVERNMENT MINISTER TO INCREASE
SUPPORT FOR HOUSING COOPERATIVES IN WALES.
Speaking after Questions to the Environment Minister, Mike
Hedges AM said…. ‘I have been interested in Cooperative Housing for a number of
years, and have looked at how other countries develop so much more housing of
this type. In each case, there has been seed funding and support from the local
and regional government to get things off the ground. I am aware that the Welsh
Cooperative Centre and the work they are undertaking but I thought it would be
an opportunity to nudge the Minister and ask her to ensure it remains high on
the agenda of the Welsh Government. I believe that Cooperative Housing can play
a big part in ensuring that we are building sufficient new houses in the years
to come.’
Mike Hedges AM 8. Will the
Minister provide an update on Welsh Government support for co-operative
housing? OAQ53424
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Hannah Blyddyn - We are
committed to supporting the development of co-operative housing in Wales and
community-led housing more generally. Through our co-operative housing in Wales
project, we fund, with the Wales Co-operative Centre, to encourage, promote and
support housing co-operatives.161
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Mike Hedges AM - Oh,
sorry; I wasn't sure if you'd finished then.162
Whilst co-operative
housing provides a substantial proportion of dwellings in places as diverse as
New York, Vancouver and Scandinavia, it has failed to become a major provider
of housing in Wales. Will the Minister set up a taskforce or take some action
to identify what needs to be done to substantially increase co-operative
housing in Wales? I believe it's something that we are missing out on and an
opportunity to increase the number of houses, which we all keep on talking
about wanting.163
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Hannah Blyddyn The Member
talks about innovative initiatives that are happening elsewhere, not just in
Europe but across the world globally. I agree there are things we can learn
from elsewhere in housing as well as other public policy areas as well.
Likewise, there are things where other countries could learn from the things
that we are doing. We do have innovations in co-operative housing in Wales. At
the moment, these are fairly small scale, but some are obviously more
successful than others, and we need to learn from these examples and scale
upwards based on the lessons learnt.164
We already have a number
of expert groups on this topic. There's the Wales Co-operative Centre, which is
grant-funded by the Welsh Government, and there's also a co-operative housing
stakeholder group, where both the Wales Co-operative Centre and the
Confederation of Co-operative Housing are joined by Community Housing Cymru,
the Welsh Local Government Association, as well as community-led housing groups
themselves. Whilst at the moment we're not convinced by the merits of another
expert group, I think it's certainly something that these expert groups can
look at to ensure that they learn from examples in other parts of the world and
see how they can apply successfully here in Wales.
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