NO homeless households are currently having to stay in bed and breakfast accommodation in one of Wales’ most expensive counties, housing chiefs have said.

However they warned the situation can change quickly and bed and breakfast accommodation had to be used recently for two rough sleepers due to heatwaves in June and July.

Councillor Sara Burch, the cabinet member responsible in Monmouthshire County Council’s Labour and Green Party administration, told a scrutiny committee it had achieved its aim of reducing use of B&Bs.

She said: “We had a high number of homeless households in bed and breakfasts that is now down to a very nice round number of zero.

“The first aim was to stop using bed and breakfasts for families with children under 18 and we’ve achieved that and we’ve now ended block contracts with bed and breakfasts.”

Between April 2023 and March 2026, the number of households accommodated in B&Bs fell from 94 to six. In line with the council’s priorities, none of these were young people aged under 18 or in the18 to 24 age group.

At its peak, according to a report for the committee, the council had more than

200 households in all types of temporary accommodation. At the end of the 2025/26 financial year there were 142 households in temporary accommodation.

The council has instead increased the number of privately leased homes it can use for temporary accommodation while there are also more homes available as social housing, through housing associations.

Cllr Burch said as well as being better for individuals the council has made financial savings from reduced use of expensive B&Bs.

The council was also able to end its use of a bed and breakfast in Chepstow when it repurposed the former Severn View care home in the town as a 17 bed hostel.

Strategic housing manager Ian Bakewell said: “We’ve got zero households in bed and breakfast as I sit here. We’ve been on zero now probably for a few weeks but I’m not able to say that won’t change. There may individuals we’re not able to place in certain accommodation and there are unexpected events.

“Due to the extreme heat we needed to accommodate two people and get them off the street from a safety point of view.

“We’ve got this risk of flooding hanging over us, it may be we need to accommodate people.”

There are currently some 3,000 people on the county council managed housing waiting list with around 2,000 classed as “in need”.

The council also has a dedicated prevention team with the most common outcome, for people facing homelessness, to be re-accommodated by family or friends, which happened in 41 per cent of cases, while 30 per cent gained access to social housing.

The council has also bought its own accommodation with three properties purchased and two to be used as shared housing for single people with all in the north of the county as Mr Bakewell acknowledged a current imbalance with more temporary accommodation in the south.