MORE than half of the near 4,000 people on the housing waiting list in Monmouthshire are in work, a report shows.

The figure was highlighted at a meeting to discuss a plan to build up to 2,100 new homes by 2033, including off Monmouth’s Dixton Road, as well as earmarking land for employment.

Michelle Morgan, of Monmouthshire Housing Association, backed the replacement local development plan being drawn up by Monmouthshire Council and said it would address the lack of affordable housing.

The Labour-led council’s policy will require that half new houses are ‘affordable homes, including a mix of social rent and shared ownership.

The plan is the first time a Welsh council has proposed a 50 per cent affordability requirement on new developments, and homes will also have to be ‘net zero carbon’, using technology such as solar panels.

Ms Morgan was one of 13 public speakers to address a special Monmouthshire Council scrutiny session, considering 4,000 responses to the consultation launched last November on the proposed development plan.

“There are over 3,900 people in housing need on the council waiting, list including 203 households accepted as homeless,” said Ms Morgan.

She said 76 per cent of applicants are of working age and 52 per cent of them in employment, with the greatest demand in Abergavenny, followed by Chepstow, Caldicot and Monmouth, with on average 98 people bidding for every home on the Monmouthshire Homesearch website where social tenancies are publicised.

“Housing is out of reach of many working age people,” said Ms Morgan who explained housing associations in Monmouthshire had allocated 423 homes last year, with half to homeless households.

The average waiting time for someone in the band one highest level of housing need, is more than 12 months, but she gave the example of a 30-year-old woman in Caldicot, earning £30,000 a year, who ‘can’t afford’ to move from the home she shares with her mother and stepfather.

Due to a fractious situation at home, the woman has applied for social housing but has been placed as low priority band 3 and has made 72 bids for a home but is always ranked below 50th place.

Other speakers outlined concerns around traffic at proposed housing sites at Dixton Road, where air quality and the impact on rare bats was also highlighted, and Mounton Road in Chepstow.

Jonty Pearce said the Dixton plan would be subject to potential legal challenges and said: “Bats may not have many friends but they have the law and the nature-loving people of Monmouthshire who want our wildlife protected.”

Rebecca Cunningham who also spoke against a housing site in Monmouth slammed the 15,000 page length of the reports pack, saying: “It would take an average person six months to read.”

The plan has also earmarked sites east of Abergavenny and at the David Broome showground at Crick between Portskewett and Caldicot as strategic housing sites.

The committee is considering the responses before the plan is put before the full council for approval, which will lead to it being independently examined on behalf of the Welsh Government.