Securing a path towards Adequate Housing – including Fair Rents and Affordability - Response by the Bevan Foundation

We are especially concerned about the wording of the proposal that a rent could be defined as fair if it is “reasonable and proportional to the specific circumstances of the locality”. [...] Without access to this data, it will be difficult for the Welsh Government to ensure that the holiday let sector is regulated in a way that reduces incentives for landlords to flip their properties from the long-term rental sector to the holiday let sector. [...] This is likely to be a by-product of the lack of clarity that is evident in the Green Paper as to what are the Welsh Government’s overarching policy objectives, as set out in the introduction to our response. [...] Finally, the premise of the suggestion again brings into the focus the question about what are the aims of the Welsh Government’s housing policy? Given that this a model that would seek to support the growth of the private rented sector, does this mean that the aim of the Welsh Government is to grow the tenure? If this is the case, then the Welsh Government should be explicit in setting this out. [...] If the aim of the Welsh Government is to introduce rent controls as a temporary measure to regulate rents in an overheating market, the measures that should be considered would be different to if the aim of the Welsh Government is to regulate rents on a longer-term basis.