Tai Cymdeithasol ac Adfywio

Bydda i'n cymryd rhan mewn dadl yn yr Eisteddfod dydd Mercher gyda Dafydd Iwan a phobol o bleidiau eraill yn y Pabell Sbardun am ddeg o'r gloch yn y bore. Trefnwyd y digwyddiad gan Gartrefi Cymunedol Cymru.

RCT Homes

We launched RCT Homes yesterday, the community housing mutual - or housing cooperative - which tenants in Rhondda Cynon Taff voted to set up. Its £170 million investment programme will involve the installation of an estimated 5,000 new kitchens, 4,000 new bathrooms and 6,000 energy-efficient boilers. Other improvements will include extensive re-wiring, the installation of new central heating systems, improved security measures and work on roofs, chimneys and walls as well as a promised £1m a year on environmental enhancements.

The Community Housing Mutual model was developed by the co-operative movement in Wales with the support of the Welsh Assembly Government.

Earlier this year I launched a report that highlighted the unprecedented opportunities the introduction of the Welsh Housing Quality Standard would create.

RCT Homes is maximising these opportunities and creating new jobs, training opportunities, business contracts and major new investment in housing and related regeneration work.

Around 170 jobs will be created through RCT Homes operations. RCT Homes has implemented community benefit clauses in its procurement contracts. Local businesses have bid for and win major contracts against competition from national companies leading to the creation of a total of 59 new local jobs.

RCT Homes has also tied its main contractors into using locally-based suppliers which will generate a total of 61 new jobs and training opportunities.

RCT Homes has been working with the Heads of the Valleys JobMatch initiative to maximise the impact the new job and training opportunities will have on the local employment situation.

RCT Homes itself has created 53 new jobs since it began operations at the end of last year, and took on 6 apprentices.

Torfaen tenants also voted to go down the community mutual route. This is a model approach that I believe others will follow to help regenerate our most disadvantaged communities.

Reachinhg the Welsh Housing Quality Standard is not a one-off opportunity but an ongoing, long-term investment because not only do these new housing standards need to be reached, but they have to be maintained through a rolling programme of work.

Merthyr Assembly Building

The last time I visited the Merthyr Assembly building it was a construction site, so it was good to visit colleagues in the Assembly Housing Directorate today, and to find how much everyone likes the building.

Return to Housing

I have spent the last week getting to grips with the Housing brief. I was delighted to be offered the opportunity by Rhodri to take on the challenge of delivering our manifesto commitments on affordable housing. Ten years ago I was a relatively new Board Member of Tai Cymru, the then Housing quango in Wales, and at the same time actively involved of course in the Yes for Wales referendum campaign. I produced a paper with Gareth Hughes, then of the Welsh Federation of Housing Associations (now known as Community Homes Cymru) and now of ITV Wales, arguing that savings could be found to liberate more funding for housing from the Government's proposal to abolish Tai Cymru as part of the devolution settlement. This got me into some trouble with the other Board Members!

Twenty years ago I was the UK Campaign Director for the 1987 UN International Year of Shelter for the Homeless, campaigning for changes in housing policy and raising funds for innovative projects in the UK and overseas. I worked in that role from the end of 1984 until the end of 1987, helping to set up the charity and working closely with our President, the late Lord Scarman, and his deputy, one Ivor Richard, whom I was pleased to see again at the official opening of the Assembly this week.

So it's good to be back and working in the field. Contrary to this report, I had a useful initial informal meeting with the Welsh Local Government Association at their conference this week. Housing is moving up the political agenda in Wales, and there is a great deal to be done. Rhodri mentioned our planned Legislative Competence Order in the Assembly this week, and I hope we will be able to take that forward shortly. I believe there are opportunities to work with AMs from other parties to advance the housing agenda, and I look forward to that.