Countryside Agency Archive
Breadcrumbs
A Vision For Rural Communities - 14 June 2000
If the Government's vision of mixed rural communities is to be achieved, at least 10,000 additional affordable homes will be needed in rural England each year. That requires changes in planning and funding, said Countryside Agency chief executive Richard Wakeford speaking at the Chartered Institute of Housing conference today (Wednesday 14 June)
Richard Wakeford said "Housing is not just homes for the people
concerned - it is also the key to tackling social exclusion and to
maintaining mixed and viable communities. The social strength of
the countryside depends on positive measures to prevent it becoming
the preserve of the wealthy.. "Current social housing provision falls well short of the level we estimate is necessary. Recognition of rural housing needs, or the lack of it, is itself one of the key stumbling blocks. The Countryside Agency looks to the Rural White Paper (due to be published shortly) for a positive way forward on this thorny issue.
"The Government's Housing Green Paper includes some potentially helpful policy proposals, but it still looks to the Rural White Paper and the Housing Corporation's review of its rural programme specifically to address rural issues - and so they must! We need better needs assessment, better planning and better funding.
"Existing planning mechanisms have proved inadequate. The "quota approach", where a proportion of larger housing developments can be set aside for affordable housing, fails to bite on small scale market housing developments in rural areas; while the 'exceptions site' policy is dogged by delays and negotiations over site identification and finance.
"Existing policy could be made more effective - by amending planning guidance to enable local authorities to plan properly for affordable housing in smaller communities, for example by allocating sites for 'social diversity', by pooling development sites around a village or small town to produce an agreed number of affordable units as part of the overall development, or finally, by a 'reverse quota' in areas of high housing demand so that more affordable houses could be produced for each market house.
"Current levels of funding for social rural housing are also inadequate. In particular, we look for an expanded Housing Corporation rural programme, following the Government's current spending review. On the basis of actual housing needs we estimate the programme should be around five times its current size."
