Plaid Cymru has come out in favour of rent controls in the PRS as part of its housing strategy in the party’s manifesto.

It explains that its proposed Right to Adequate Housing Bill in Wales includes powers to introduce rent controls and other market interventions to make housing more affordable. It believes a significant expansion in the amount of social and municipal housing stock is also needed which would help tackle private rental sector rent rises.

The Welsh government is currently considering feedback from its consultation last year on housing adequacy, fair rents, and affordability.

Although ministers have resisted calls for a rent freeze in the past, saying they did not want to drive landlords away from the sector, Plaid Cymru has said the free market in housing was “failing our communities”. Landlords and the NRLA have warned the Senedd to leave well alone following the upheaval caused by Renting Homes (Wales).

In its manifesto, Plaid Cymru promises to overhaul the planning system and develop a strategy to deliver significant expansion to meet local housing need in all parts of the country, accessing a mixture of public and private funding streams.

Powers

It has already introduced powers for local authorities to require registration of a change of use for a property into a holiday home and to introduce a cap on the number of second and holiday homes within a community as well as introducing a council tax premium on second homes.

It now wants to close loopholes which allow holiday homes to pretend to be legitimate lettings businesses, to ensure that genuine self-catered accommodation businesses can be protected.

Plaid Cymru ended its cooperation agreement with the Labour-led government in Wales last month and has 12 of 60 seats in the Senedd. It will be looking to boost its tally of three out of 40 Welsh seats in the UK Parliament.