England’s unaffordable countryside risks becoming an old people’s home
I promised you some new pearls of wisdom from our good friend Mr Derounian and the Guardian has now published his latest article. In a characteristically pithy insight on the failure of housing policy in rural areas he tells us:
The latest government policy change designed to get Britain building proposes that a developer’s obligation to build affordable homes should be waived if they are building 10 homes or fewer.
Section 106 obliges developers to make a certain percentage of new homes affordable. In 2013, these obligations delivered 66% of homes in rural settlements. In the government’s affordable housing programme, 75% of new affordable rural homes were built through section 106 between 2008 and 2011.
The campaign group Action with Communities in Rural England (Acre) has highlighted the case of Dorset, where nearly 90% of rural developments are for 10 homes or fewer. Figures from local authorities in Devon (also cited by Acre) suggest that affordable homes developed on sites of fewer than 10 homes through section 106 obligations can account for up to 27% of all homes built in an area.
In a rural context even a 10-house threshold may lead to multiple infill developments that in combination induce unsustainable strains on village or town services, pressure which is planned for when larger developments are approved.