Renting boom shows housing need

The Bevan Foundation has responded to a report that parts of Wales are experiencing a boom in privately  rented housing.  Analysis by Wales’s leading daily newspaper, the Western Mail, on 9th February 2013 revealed that less than a third of houses in parts of Cardiff are now owner-occupied.

Commenting in the feature, Victoria Winckler, Director of the Bevan Foundation, said that more needed to be done to make the private rented sector a better place for tenants to live.

“If people are going to live in private rented homes in the long term, not just as a stepping stone to owner occupation or while they wait for social housing, there need to be some significant changes in regulation.

“Privately rented housing has the worst conditions and is the least energy efficient of all housing, and these days is mostly relatively insecure.  There are few controls on rents, which, given the housing shortage, are likely to shoot up.”