Gwynedd's housing crisis is immoral

Craig ab Iago

As former housing leader at Gwynedd, I first used the term “housing crisis” at Gwynedd back in 2020.

It all began when I saw a house for sale in my locality, Llanllyfni, on sale for £400,000. It was being marketed as a house near Abersoch.

It rang alarm bells in my mind. The average wage of a Llanllyfni resident at the time was around £23,000. It was obviously not being targeted towards the local market.

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Crisis

As Plaid Cymru Gwynedd councillors we’d always worked on strategies around
housing, but this catapulted the issue as we branded the situation a housing crisis.

Funnily enough, when I began the research to the background context of housing in north Wales, I saw that Cornwall was going through a similar problem.

St Ives Town Council had recently been in the media trying to tackle the second home crisis in their area. When I rang a housing officer at Cornwall Council to learn more, a local lad from Meirionnydd answered the phone and we began an enthusiastic dialogue.

A cutting arrived via email from that officer taken from The Guardian newspaper in 1972 showing an image of his grandparents as one of the last local families to leave the village of Rhyd in Gwynedd.

The houses in the village that sits between Maentwrog and Llanfrothen during those 1970s had become second homes.

Looking at the history of second homes in Gwynedd, I then found that former Plaid Cymru MP for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Elfyn Llwyd had been introducing private member bills in the House of Commons decades earlier.

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Sad story

I quickly realised that my situation in Llanllyfni was not new, it was just the latest chapter in this sad story.

Housing was then catapulted as a major priority for us in Gwynedd. Did you know that 65.5% of Gwynedd residents cannot afford a single home in Gwynedd.

40% of all homes currently on the market are not bought as a primary residence. This situation is immoral.

You may not be aware that there are two elements to housing. The first is supply, which is the actual houses available for people to live in. Gwynedd now has a strong £190m ‘Housing Action Plan’ with great progress being made.

The other element is managing the housing demand, and that’s where planning comes in. Over the years Gwynedd has been innovative in the use of various tools available to create a level playing field for local people keen to get onto the housing ladder.

I am now the cabinet member with responsibility for planning. We’re the only council in Wales to introduce Article 4, which means that property owners will now need to request planning permission in order to change the use of their home from a primary residence to a second house or holiday home.

Beautiful

That should improve the number of houses available for people wanting to live in their local area.

Abersoch, Aberdaron, Botwnnog, Llanengan and Tudweiliog on the north west coast of Gwynedd now have 90% and 96% of local people unable to afford to buy houses in these villages and hamlets.

We know that these areas are beautiful places. But houses with price tags of well over a million pounds, will never be affordable for local people.

We need thriving communities with youngsters feeding the local schools, families working within the local economy and supporting vibrant local businesses.

That is how we create a prosperous community with housing, work, education, leisure, language, culture and heritage forming the cornerstone of our society. We continue in our quest!

Penygroes County Councillor, Craig ab Iago, is Gwynedd’s cabinet member for environment.