Housing Regeneration and Heritage Minister Huw Lewis recently visited residents of Gallamuir Road in Tremorfa to see how work to achieve the Welsh Housing Quality Standard (WHQS) has improved their homes and their lives.

The Minister visited the properties ahead of a debate on progress towards achieving the WHQS at the Senedd.

Mr Lewis visited the homes of Mrs Betty Miller and Mrs Fay Operanta to see the improvements to their homes which include new kitchens and bathrooms, double glazing and energy efficiency measures. Their homes are just two of more than 13,600 properties owned by Cardiff Council that have been brought up to the WHQS Cardiff is the first local authority to achieve the standard in all its properties, except those where the tenant declined to have the work completed.

Figures show that in Wales at 31 March this year, if acceptable fails are included, 94% of homes had windows that fully complied with the WHQS; 92% had fully compliant smoke detectors; 91% had external doors that met the Standard in full; 88% of roofs were fully compliant, as were 70% of bathrooms and 68% of kitchens. Most local authorities and housing associations are expected to meet the Standard by 2017 and a Ministerial Task Force has been established to ensure that all meet it by 2020.

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The Minister said: "The Welsh Housing Quality Standard is all about ensuring that over 220,000 households in Wales have a home that is safe and secure. This is a basic human need. It is also vital to helping us achieve many other of our goals as a Government including improving the nation’s health and well being, creating jobs and training opportunities and tackling poverty. I am pleased with the progress that has been made so far. We still have some way to go until all our housing stock meets the WHQS, and the original 2012 target has been extended to 2020.

"The Standard was always ambitious and difficult to achieve in view of the work, money and political will required to make it happen, but we are committed to ensuring that all Welsh tenants have a decent, warm, safe home. We will continue to work with local authorities and housing associations across Wales to support them in improving the homes, lives and communities of their tenants.

"This level of work represents huge expenditure in some of our poorest communities through jobs, training contracts and supply chains. That will continue up to 2020 at a time when most other investment is stationary or falling."

(CD)