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The rate of house-building in Caerphilly County Borough will have to double to keep up with targets.

A new report shows 278 homes were built in the county borough in the 2023/24 financial year – down from 380 homes the previous year.

Caerphilly County Borough Council is preparing a new Local Development Plan (LDP), which is a strategic blueprint for where and how new building work should be carried out.

A new LDP is overdue, and the council will have to prove to Welsh Government inspectors that it will be able to meet the area’s housing needs.

At a meeting on Tuesday October 1, Cllr Philippa Leonard, the cabinet member for planning, noted the rate of new homes was “beneath the annual requirement”.

The previous LDP set out a target for 575 new homes each year, and also dictates how the council will earmark land for commercial and industrial development.

Cllr Leonard said the council granted planning permission for eight hectares of employment land last year.

But development of sites allocated for employment use “continues to stagnate”.

Some undeveloped sites include land at business parks in Duffryn and Oakdale, and in the Heads of the Valleys area, according to the report.

At the meeting, Cllr Nigel Dix raised concerns about the condition of the county borough’s high streets, which have “a lot of vacancies”, including in his hometown of Blackwood.

He said businesses had been hit by a national reduction in business rates relief.

Dave Lucas, the council’s team leader for strategic planning, agreed retail was a “problematic topic” and had “faced a perfect storm for a number of years”.

He said the council would look “very seriously… at how to revitalise” high streets, including extending their offers beyond shopping.

Recently, the council announced it was setting up a series of agile working and meeting spaces in empty shops across the county borough.

The first “pop up” is located in the former Barclays bank in Cardiff Road, Caerphilly.