Why aren't we building better buildings?

We clearly have issues in our construction industry in Wales. There are horror stories of all kinds across the country with regards to the quality, location, and design of new homes and other buildings. The regulatory landscape is mixed with enforcement regimes largely soft-touch and increasingly stretched local and national government budgets in Wales are rarely able to intervene - not to mention the powerful building lobby appear to have prevented any significant interventions by Welsh Government. Meanwhile, across the border, the UK Government (as the government of England) are grappling with the legacy of the Grenfell Tower disaster in relation to tower block safety and cladding in a way that campaigners in Wales wish the government here was matching. Compounding things, we have homeowners battling with the ongoing existence of leasehold - Wales and England being the only two countries in the Western world where it persists - and finding themselves exposed to unexpected liabilities in the context of rising, occasionally exploitatively so, ground rents. With Welsh Government still unable to act in relation to property law (unlike Scotland, NI, and indeed England), leaseholders are at the mercy once more of the Westminster parliament and its own exposure to hard lobbying by freeholders. And all of this is affecting a small country with some of the oldest and poorest-quality housing in Western Europe. So is the situation as bad as it seems and, if so, what can be done about it? We speak to two guests to find out: - Sam Rees is Head of Policy and Public Affairs for the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors in Wales: https://twitter.com/RICSWales - Mark Thomas is Chair of Celestia Housing Company Limited (Check) and spokesperson for the Welsh Cladiators campaign group: https://twitter.com/WelshCladiators Piece from friend of the pod Prof Calvin Jones ' Your Retrofit Alone is Not Enough': https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/retrofit-pointless-calvin-jones-vimhe As always, you can find the latest from us @hiraethpod on most social media, including Twitter/X here: https://twitter.com/HiraethPod We hope you find this podcast interesting and useful. Please do send feedback, it's always great to hear what our audience thinks. Thank you for listening to the podcast. If you have enjoyed it, please leave us a nice rating or comment on your podcast app or on YouTube and, if you are able to do so, please consider supporting our work from just £3/month on Patreon: www.patreon.com/hiraethpod