Planning and Environmental Standards
Social housing would be built to the highest possible environmental standards, with the most efficient use of energy and lowest possible emissions. Buildings and wider developments must take account of their historical, cultural and ecological context.
To tackle the scandal of poor-quality estates we would:
- Legislate to end the scandal of leasehold homes with unfair service charges.
- Set a timetable and a strategy for homes in the private rental sector to reach the Welsh Housing Quality Standard.
- Improve consumer protection for poor quality in new builds.
- Ensure that past performance in delivering against planning obligations can become a material consideration in future planning applications so never again can developers with a poor reputation continue to get approval for housing.
- Seek the powers to introduce a windfall tax on the profits of large developers and use the proceeds to solve the problems created by poor builds, which can often trap owners into poor quality flats and houses with no recourse, which has been the case with the cladding scandal.