We need housing (From Penarth Times)

We need housing

8:30am Thursday 16th August 2012 in Letters

THE demolition of the Billybanks Estate has brought Penarth’s housing crisis into sharp focus on a national level.

Just through the loss of the Billybanks, Penarth has lost 329 affordable and social homes for 1,000 people. They have made way for the Penarth Heights development that will include 20 per cent affordable homes.

We must accept that the quality of housing offered in the Billybanks was no longer adequate. But what we absolutely cannot accept is that affordable and social housing has not been built elsewhere in Penarth to replace those homes, creating nothing short of a housing crisis in our community.

Plaid Cymru Penarth believes that young people have and will continue to bear the brunt of this housing crisis and ultimately be forced to move out of our community.

And when one section of our community suffers in that way, it has knock-on effects for everyone else.

That’s why in the recent council elections Plaid Cymru Penarth led our campaign with ideas on housing to ensure a future for everyone that wants to make Penarth their home.

People who voted for Plaid Cymru in Penarth can be certain we don’t just want to work for them at election time.

This week we have responded to the Welsh Government’s consultation on housing to ensure the voices of the people of Penarth, especially our young people, are not lost.

We have called for the Welsh Government and our council to take action to ensure Penarth remains a vibrant and diverse community by stabilising the price of renting and buying a home.

In the long term that can only be done through a Wales-wide home building scheme but in the short term the government must demand that a higher level of new builds are affordable, as well as considering a suspension of the ‘right to buy’ scheme and capping rent prices.

Our elected representatives have known this crisis was coming for many years but have failed to act effectively on our behalf. Now young people must take up the fight for our future and our communities’ future ourselves.

Luke James Osian Lewis Luke Nicholas (Plaid Candidate for Cardiff South & Penarth parliamentary by-election) Three young people on behalf of Plaid Cymru Penarth