Over the past few months, we’ve been looking at how the UK will tackle the under-supply of affordable housing in a series of posts on the Advantage structural defects insurance blog. So we were interested to hear this week that thousands of new council homes are planned for Wales by 2040.

As reported by the BBC:  A new planning framework aims to show where new homes, jobs and services need to be over the next 20 years.

Proposals also set out priority areas for large-scale wind and solar energy projects.

An additional 114,000 homes are needed over the next 20 years – including 3,900 affordable or council homes a year.

Housing Minister Julie James said she was committed to building more council housing “at pace and scale”.

She said the proposals – outlined in the National Development Framework – were also about bringing the places where people live and work closer together.

Ms James said she wanted to focus growth around existing towns and cities but would not forget rural communities.

“We need the best of both worlds – a world-leading city in Cardiff, thriving market towns all over Wales and sustainable rural communities with the sort of housing which allows children to stay and work there.”

Ms James, who grew up in a council house herself, said the biggest problem had been the scarcity of social housing to rent, both in rural communities and cities.

She said she was committed to building more council housing and more affordable homes from other social landlords.

“There is nothing in who owns it, it’s about what you’re offering to people in good, sustainable homes.”

The Chartered Institute of Housing Cymru “strongly welcomed” the ambition to greatly increase the amount of council homes and said it must remain at the forefront of discussions how affordability was “understood and translated in reality” to enable people to thrive in communities.

Related read: The government unveils new measures to tackle social housing stigma.