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Cardiff faces a housing crisis. The Council’s failure to produce a Local Development Plan is a complete dereliction of responsibility. The Council’s Lib Dem and Plaid leadership claim that the Development Plan process is to blame for their mistakes – but not a single other council in Wales has failed to draw up Plan.

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The problem here is that the absence of an LDP makes the urgent task of resolving the future housing needs of the city more and more difficult. There are thousands of people already on the housing waiting list, and the list is growing all the time. When the cuts in housing benefit planned by the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition in Westminster are forced through, the situation will get even worse.

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All this will be happening at a time when Cardiff’s population is set to grow over the next decade – bringing more housing pressures with it.

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I believe that Cardiff’s housing needs can only be addressed by looking at the city’s position as the motor of the wider South East Wales economy –and even as part of a ‘Severn-side’ economy which takes into account the activity of Bristol, just across our border. There is scope for housing development in valley communities which will both help the economy and prosperity of those areas, and provide for working families for whom jobs are likely to be in Cardiff itself. That needs a proper plan, which integrates public transport with housing development, and does so over a geographical area wider than Cardiff.

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Of course, there are many other issues on the housing agenda which need to be tackled, including action to bring empty houses back into use, and the creation of new funding vehicles to help build new affordable housing, and to refurbish existing stock. Wales will need to strike out in some new directions, to avoid the worst of the impact which will be produced by cuts in London. That’s why we need a strong Assembly, led by Labour to give Welsh voters the protection they need.