Affordable Housing: A Fair Deal for Rural Communities
I make no apologies for quoting the outcomes of this review in full as its so important – read on:
Because more sites are needed:
1. Since the vast majority of rural schemes are on small sites, Government’s policy to remove from local authorities the power to require affordable homes on sites of less than 10 homes must be reversed. Local Planning Authorities should require all sites, whatever their size, to make an affordable housing contribution. The level of this contribution – in cash or kind – will be determined by what works in the housing market of that area.
2. Government should provide incentives to encourage land owners to develop rural affordable housing to meet local needs or to release sites for these homes, e.g. through tax incentives or nomination rights, which would also stimulate the local economy
3. Since local communities cannot properly influence what kind of development takes place without a Local Plan, Government should require all local authorities to complete their Local Plan preparation within two years.
Because new homes must be affordable to local people:
4. Government should exclude rural areas from the “spare room subsidy withdrawal” (“bedroom tax”) because there are so few opportunities for rural tenants in houses to move to 1 or 2 bedroom flats in villages; these households should not be forced to move away from their long- standing social and support networks to urban areas elsewhere.
5. Where there are already problems from the low levels of affordable housing and limited opportunities to build any more, Government should give rural local authorities the power to suspend the Right to Buy.
6. To provide a driver for action and delivery by housing associations of all sizes, a new national minimum target for delivery of rural housing through the Homes and Communities Agency should be established of 13% of the HCA’s national investment (in proportion to the population in settlements of less than 3,000 population).
7. To address problems of accessing development finance, Government should find ways of supporting the development funding of small and medium- sized builders and housing associations that undertake smaller developments: e.g. recalibrating its loan guarantee scheme to cover schemes of less than 25 homes.
Because affordable homes need to be there for future households
8. To ensure rents are affordable in ‘low wage, high house price’ rural communities, Government should not require housing associations to charge “affordable rents” at 80% of market rents as a condition for receiving HCA funding. Instead, as in Greater London, rents should be charged at a level agreed between the local authority and the housing provider as being affordable in relation to local incomes.
9. Where an area is experiencing high levels of second home ownership, Government should endorse the approach taken by the Exmoor National Park Authority, and in other places, by requiring a proportion of new open market homes granted planning permission – up to a 100% in exceptional cases – on condition that they can only be used as principal residences.
10.The Council of Mortgage Lenders should now produce a standardised mortgage form for rural affordable home ownership, to ensure buyers can easily get a mortgage but the homes will be retained as affordable in perpetuity and cannot be sold on the open market by the lender if the mortgagee defaults.
Because leadership is needed from national to community level:
11.The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, as the champion for rural areas, should ensure “rural proofing” is continuously and consistently applied to national policies, with specialist, rural technical expertise available to all Government departments.
12.Because Neighbourhood Plans are a vital means for rural communities to deliver affordable homes, yet require resources and expertise, Government should increase and extend its support (beyond April 2015) for more communities to produce Neighbourhood Plans. And the Homes and Communities Agency should offer match funding to housing associations for the employment of Rural Housing Enablers who can play the key role in bringing together parish councils, land owners, local authorities and housing associations to achieve affordable rural homes.