Grow your own
That is the common theme linking the first two features in this summer issue of welsh housing quarterly.
In the case of the cover feature, Rachel Moxey and Dainis Dauksta mean it literally when they talk about growing your own homes. The article is about the massive untapped potential of Welsh timber in the creation of new homes and jobs. To quote just one startling statistic, Welsh softwood forests grow enough timber to build a house every 10 minutes – so what’s stopping us?
Dave Adamson and Mark Lang have something potentially even more ambitious in their article on CREW’s Deep Place approach to more equitable and sustainable places. Their report centres on the regeneration of Tredegar through the development of a more localised economic model. Could Deep Place be a game changer for Tredegar and an inspiration for other communities in Wales and beyond?
Also in this issue of WHQ, Carl Sargeant marks a busy first year as housing minister
with an interview on his progress so far and his priorities for the future. He talks about domestic abuse, gender representation in housing and supply and reflects on the legislative programme and the impact of welfare reform.
Those issues are also covered elsewhere in this issue. In Viewpoint Joy Kent argues that the Welsh housing sector has the chance to lead the way on gender balance in decision making. Why not just do it?
The implications of the legislation are considered in a series of features that follow. Martin Partington analyses the changes in the law and their impact on the private rented sector. Sue Finch hails the deal on self-financing that puts new council housing back on the agenda at last. And John Puzey looks at the huge culture change that the homelessness changes will require.
In the meantime, though, welfare reform continues. How does the local impact of the bedroom tax measure up to what its architects in London imagined? Simon Inkson went to the Upper Afan Valley to find out.
We also hear from the team behind #CouncilHomeChat on their campaign against negative stereotyping of social housing and tenants and people on benefits. What began in Wales as a reaction to How to Get a Council House and Benefits Street has gone UK-wide through social media and has ambitious plans for the future.
The final two features look at housing at opposite ends of the age scale. Sarah Hillcoat- Nallétamby looks at recent research into what older people really think about their homes and neighbourhoods while the team behind a successful project in Wrexham demonstrate the value of improvements to the homes of children suffering from asthma.
All that, plus much more from all our regular contributors, make this a wide- ranging issue of WHQ. Enjoy the summer.
Jules Birch
Editor, WHQ