Wales set to build 20,000 low carbon social homes
Plans to build 20,000 low carbon social homes for rent in Wales by 2026 has been announced by the Welsh Government’s climate change minister.
The idea behind the plans is to tackle both a housing shortage and climate change. The project could create 7,000 jobs, 3,000 training opportunities and help produce almost £2bn of economic output in Wales over the next few year. The new houses will meet “bold, new quality and environmental standards”.
There is also talk of some becoming miniature power stations, using green technology to generate more electricity than they need. The surpass power will then be exported back to the national grid to supply other homes with green energy.
Julie James, Climate Change Minister said: “We are building at scale to address the supply and demand imbalance, homelessness, the growing second home crisis and the climate emergency.”
Homelessness charity Shelter Cyrum are backing the new social housing project by the Government as opposed to so called “affordable homes”.
“To put it into context, we have approaching 70,000 households in Wales who are on waiting lists seeking social housing,” said Shelter’s chief executive Ruth Power.
“We also have more than 6,000 people in temporary accommodation and under the right-to-buy policy up to 2016, we lost 139,000 social homes.”
Whilst environmentalists have questioned what is going to be done to cut greenhouse emissions from the 1.5 million existing homes in Wales.
Many housing projects are taking climate change issues into consideration and at the forefront of their plans; whether that be adding solar panels or ground source heat pumps or increasing wall insulations thickness.
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