I note that at least one Plaid blogger has repeated the claim by the Deputy First Minister on Tuesday that the One Wales Governmentis halfway towards its target of 6,500 new affordable houses in Wales. It is an interesting claim, largely because it carefully rewrites what was actually promised and is therefore untrue.
The One Wales agreement is quite clear that the government would not just build 6,500 homes, but would increase the supply of affordable homes by this amount. Only counting what has been built but ignoring what has been lost isn’t therefore a measure of their success in reaching this target.
A total of 976 local authority owned properties and 104 social landlord owned properties have been sold between 2007/08 and 2008/09. In 2007/08 67 social housing units were demolished. I do not have the demolition figures for 2008/09 but I suspect that they are comparable to the previous year.
This means that 1,147 affordable housing units have to be deducted from the Minister’s 3,252 figure, meaning that the supply of affordable housing has only increased by 2,105 units.
The One Wales Government is some way off achieving this target and on the current level of resources will not reach it by 2011.
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