first time buyer grant
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Money taken from developers will be used to help first time buyers renovate empty homes as part of an innovative new council grant scheme.
Conwy council is using section 106 cash, handed over by developers of housing schemes to offset their impact on communities, for the First Time Buyer Empty Homes Grant. It’s believed to be the first scheme of its kind in Wales.
First time purchasers with a connection the Snowdonia National Park area of Conwy – particularly Penmachno, Betws Y Coed or Dwygyfylchi – will have the chance of obtaining a grant of up to £25,000 to renovate a property left empty for at least six months.
Cllr Charlie McCoubrey, Conwy council’s lead member for housing, said the idea is to get some of the genuine long-term empty homes back into market.
He said: “We have around 1,100 empty homes in Conwy and we don’t have that much land to build on, so we have to be creative to satisfy the housing need.
“Young people struggle to get a deposit and then they struggle to do work on the houses. It gets disused properties back into use and helps first time buyers.”
There is £100,000 of section 106 money in the pot and there will be strict conditions on claiming the cash but the authority believes it could free up some properties in the national Park area.
Priority will be given to those with a connection to it who are buying homes in the specific catchment area.
It will also only be available for homes in the A, B and C council tax bands, to make sure the right people are getting the help they need. The maximum grant will be £25,000.
Cllr McCoubrey, said it’s one of a range of measures the council is looking at. He added: “We will monitor this and see whether there is a case for rolling it out in a wider area.”
The council recently released figures about the amount of section 106 cash it holds – and where it goes.
Between April 2018 and march 2019, £419,675 of developer contributions was spent by the council.
More than £180,000 of that went towards the provision of affordable housing, almost £100,000 towards highways and £120,000 to developing and maintaining open spaces.
The figures also revealed Conwy is sitting on more than £2.3m in section 106 contributions but more than half-a-million had already been earmarked for projects by April 2019, including the First time Buyer Grants.
The money needs to spent with a certain amount of time or it has to be returned to developers. It handed back £11,136 in 2018-19 due to one developer scaling back plans, which warranted a smaller contribution.
Conwy said, as of February this year, it still had £1.77m of developer contributions yet to be allocated to projects ranging from Welsh language to flood defence and regeneration projects.
By Jez Hemming – Local Democracy Reporter
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