Cardiff has been named 'city of the year' in an annual awards ceremony for the real estate industry. Judges said the city, which beat other finalists Birmingham and Derby, had "gone the extra mile in embracing its greener vision by supplying more affordable and sustainable housing for its citizens."
Huge swathes of housing are being built in the capital, with the council throwing its support behind multi-million pound schemes and private developers announcing new plans for blocks of thousands of flats on a semi-regular basis. But with more people entering temporary accommodation than leaving it, there is still huge pressure on the city's homelessness services - which the council's cabinet member for housing, Lynda Thorne, said was a "severe shortage" that the council was "working hard" to tackle.
Council leader Huw Thomas said he was "delighted" with the award. He added: "Cardiff prides itself on being a great place to work and do business, which attracts and retains the best talent, a place where people love to live and a city for everyone, regardless of their background. This includes delivering the best housing outcomes for the people of Cardiff, working together with our partners to ensure that all our citizens can access high quality, affordable and sustainable homes, by setting out how the City of Cardiff Council and its partners will shape and deliver future housing services and provision across the city.
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"As part of Cardiff Council's Stronger, Fairer,Greener vision, our innovative and award-winning development programme remains the largest council housing build programme in Wales and continues to deliver new homes at scale. All the homes we build achieve very high quality and energy efficiency standards to ensure homes are affordable to run for our tenants and are comfortable to live in as well as helping the council achieve its decarbonisation objectives"
The EG awards are run by the real estate data, news and analytics company formerly known as Estates Gazette. The 'city of the year' award celebrates cities that have demonstrated "strong leadership and key actions that have enabled cities to grow, attract investment and deliver on the need for equality."
