Affordable Rural Housing Commission report: A sustainable future for rural affordable housing?

12.05.2006

Introduction

1. Fulfilling its manifesto commitment, in July 2005 the Government appointed Elinor Goodman to chair the Affordable Rural Housing Commission. Its task was to investigate the level of need for affordable housing in rural areas and to make proposals for addressing this. The Commission is expected to publish its report on Wednesday, 17 May 2006.

2. There is an established consensus that the number of affordable housing in rural settlements is too few. Affordable housing is defined as being either wholly rented or part owned so that it remains permanently available to those who cannot afford to buy on the open market. The shortage of affordable houses has several key causes including the virtual ceasing of their provision by local authorities after 1980, and the effect of the Right to Buy policy in reducing the affordable housing stock without replacement. Significant numbers of people who play an important role in rural communities are unable to afford to live in those communities.

Obstacles to the provision of rural affordable homes

3. CPRE has long argued that the provision of adequate affordable housing in rural areas can only be achieved if it is a key objective of the planning system. For too long the building of affordable houses in rural communities has relied on the exceptions policy, whereby houses are built on sites where planning permission would not normally be granted. This ‘grace and favour’ approach has relied on the good will and enthusiasm of landowners. It has delivered few houses and has a number of other significant drawbacks, including the difficulty of planning for essential services and well designed settlements. It forces a crude – and unnecessary – trade-off between environmental damage and social provision.

4. For a sustainable solution to this problem, it is essential that the provision of affordable housing becomes part of the mainstream planning process and that Government funding is significantly increased.

A portfolio of solutions

5. CPRE welcomes the recent announcement by the Housing Corporation that a further £230m will be made available over the next three years for the provision of an additional 6,000 homes. We also support the Corporation’s call for local authorities to improve their performance in the provision of rural affordable housing.

6. These measures need to be supplemented. Planning policy currently does not give local authorities adequate powers to set targets for provision of affordable homes. And some local authorities have been slow in using the planning powers that are available. The provision of affordable houses implies resources which need to be found from some one other than the occupier of the home. In the view of CPRE, the alternative methods of finding these resources should be subject to rigorous testing, in terms of all aspects of their sustainability.

7. In particular, CPRE will be looking for the Commission’s report to demonstrate a sound understanding of the following key issues:

· Funding: the need for a recognition by central Government that the provision of affordable housing in rural communities should receive an equitable share of public funding.

· Controlling market housing: most types of market housing in rural areas are overprovided and a significant general expansion of market housing in rural settlements is likely to be damaging in terms of carbon emissions, pressure on infrastructure and a further imbalance of rural communities towards affluent incomers.

· Building public support: achieving public acceptance of affordable housing where it is needed will be much less likely if it is accompanied by large numbers of market houses which are not necessary and lead to loss of valued local countryside.

· Integration: the location and numbers of affordable houses will vary amongst settlements and between regions, but the location of affordable houses should be integrated with market houses to help create coherent, inclusive communities.
· Quality of planning and design: providing affordable housing should include consideration of the affordabilty of living in these houses once they are built, in terms of energy use, the convenience and cost of travelling to and from home, and the quality of design both aesthetically and practically.

· Protecting the wider public benefit: the public interest in the protection and enhancement of landscape and biodiversity need not be reduced because of the urgency of the need for affordable housing. Careful planning can prevent damaging and unnecessary trade-offs between housing provision and environmental damage.

Measures to assist local authorities

8. In addition, we hope the Commission recognises the need for a wider range of measures to be used by local authorities to secure affordable housing in rural communities. These include:

· Greater use of existing powers: local authorities need to exert greater control over the number of affordable houses provided as part of housing developments. This could be achieved through reducing site thresholds of numbers of houses built where provision of affordable houses is required and by local authorities setting higher quotas of affordable houses for all developments granted planning permission;

· Smart funding sources: the availability of mechanisms for local authorities to derive financial support for affordable housing where market housing is built, for affordable housing in other locations and on other occasions. This could be achieved through the ability to commute sums of money arising from market housing development;

· Defining the objective: the establishment of a special ‘use class’ for permanently affordable housing which would allow local authorities to allocate sites and grant planning permission specifically for affordable housing alone.

The Commission for Rural Communities

9. CPRE notes the recent contributions by the Commission for Rural Communities to the debate on the provision for rural affordable housing. Rural Housing – a place in the countryside? articulates the concerns of people who are priced out of the housing market in rural settlements. However, the report makes some assumptions which CPRE questions:

· The damaging effect of second homes. The distribution of second homes varies greatly and is concentrated in a few popular places. Where this is the case, the absence of affordable houses is a serious problem which could be addressed through new planning powers in specific areas to control second home ownership.

· It should be recognised that housing used for holiday accommodation can, in certain circumstances, bring economic benefits to local economies, generate employment and attract significant visitor expenditure.

· The inflexibility of the planning system failing to accommodate local circumstances. CPRE believes that the problem is precisely the opposite: the planning system is not strong enough to assure the provision of affordable housing.

10. Calculating Housing Needs in Rural England sets out a methodology for investigating the number of new affordable houses needed between 2006 and 2011. The report calls for an unrealistic and unnecessary expansion of housing based on a methodology which does not stand up to scrutiny. The methodology used assumes a model for household creation where the offspring of all existing people living in rural settlements will require housing in those settlements. This takes no account of the desire of many young people to move to urban areas in pursuit of their careers or higher education and of the complex relationship between household formation and housing need.

Conclusion

11. CPRE believes that the urgent need for affordable houses should not be confused with an unsustainable case for a major expansion of market housebuilding in the countryside. We need a significant increase in the funding for affordable housing in rural areas coupled with a stronger planning system which is better able to secure the provision of housing which meets identified needs, particularly of those unable to afford market housing. CPRE would be alarmed should the Commission propose that the rural exceptions approach be extended or associated with the cross-subsidy of affordable housing by market housing on exceptions sites. This would seriously undermine the planning system, provoke resistance to urgently needed affordable housing and increase the suburbanising of the countryside.

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