A LABOUR councillor has criticised Monmouthshire County Council’s “failure” to meet its affordable housing targets set in its Local Development Plan (LDP).

Councillor Dimitri Batrouni referenced that the 63 affordable dwellings completed this year, along with the 17 recorded in the previous year, were “significantly” below the LDP target of 96 dwelling completions per year.

Figures also show that the combined 439 completions of general market and affordable housing since the LDP’s adoption two years ago is below the identified target of 488 completions per annum.

The leader of the Labour Group on the council stressed the importance of providing the services to young people.

“I think we’ve failed on housing so far which destroys any argument of trying to keep young people in this county,” said Cllr Batrouni.

“That is the critical piece in all of this. We need affordable housing.”

Cllr Batrouni also cast doubts on the revision’s aim of finding further viable and “easily deliverable sites” to boost the land supply.

A council report also showed that there had been “limited progress” with the delivery of allocated strategic housing sites, with only one earmarked site having obtained planning permission in two years.

Chief officer for innovation and enterprise Kellie Beirne admitted that there were issues with the "pace and alacrity" of delivering such sites due to "a lot of unpredictable factors".

Ms Beirne added: “I think what we’re doing here in terms of putting forward the need to review our LDP is understanding that we have that gap and we really have to press hard on the gas to make sure that we’ve got even more provision going through.”

Deputy council leader Phil Hobson said that that a re-evaluation is needed due to house prices being seven times the average salary in some parts of Monmouthshire, and up to 22 times in other villages.

He added: "If we're going to retain a balanced population in Monmouthshire then we have to find a way of getting these affordable homes."

The cabinet meeting was held to discuss the proposal of beginning an early review of the LDP as a results of the housing land supply shortfall, to which there was a unanimous vote of approval.