Planning developments and the housing market can lead to challenges and opportunities in terms of the linguistic profile of communities.
On the one hand, housing developments can lead to in-migration from other areas into communities with a high density of Welsh speakers resulting in changing the main language of the community from Welsh. On the other hand, a shortage of housing can mean that local young people can often not afford to buy homes in their communities and therefore new housing developments can make affordable housing available locally.
Other factors such as economic and social ones, the increase in second homes and low wages also affect the housing market and the affordability of housing in many communities.
The Planning (Wales) Act 2015 established, for the first time, the statutory basis for the need to consider the Welsh language in the planning system; and this was a significant step forward.
Our recent publications in this field contains:
Blog: Housing is fundamental to well-being in Wales