Conwy is a special place to live

Conwy is a special place to live, we need to ensure our children can live here too

What do you love?

Everyone has a different answer but there are common things most people agree on. Family is usually at the top of the list, then friends, further down perhaps community, town, county, country.

But how would you feel if your son or daughter said: “I need to move away from Conwy, there is nowhere here for me to live.”

This is the position we are fast heading towards as plans both within and outside the Local Development Plan face strong community opposition. We have already seen developers move away from projects within the county and the need for new housing stock is very real.

According to Conwy County Borough Council’s own Corporate Research Unit Housing Bulletin, there are 2,200 homes in Conwy classed as overcrowded.

Since the inception of the current Local Development Plan in 2007, the number of new homes being built has failed to reach the necessary targets. Over eight years, the county has fallen short by approximately 1,500 homes.

That is almost half the number of homes required pro rata across the plan period. Which begs the question – where are your children, and your grandchildren, going to live?

You may want them to live in Conwy, as we do. This is our home, it always has been, and we love the blend of community and beautiful rural Welsh countryside, just as you do. But without a house to live in, where do we expect them to stay?

Conwy is not just for us, the parents and grandparents. It is for our children, and our children’s children.

But if there are no suitable homes left, they will be forced to leave. We must strike a balance that ensures we provide homes for Conwy’s future generations,

That is why we only look to develop sites which fit into the existing urban landscape. It is why we have designed out homes and sites to safeguard the environment by building in Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS), flood defence features, solar panels to produce energy and water butts to harvest rainwater for gardens.

We want to offer all our children the chance to remain in Conwy, to bring their families up here, to learn Welsh and take pride in their heritage.

If we continue to prevent sustainable, affordable and sympathetic developments in the county borough, we may soon be forcing our youth to leave the county - or even Wales itself - in search of a new home.