Rural families are being deprived of housing by a 1,000% surge in the number of short-term lets and holiday properties, according to countryside charity CPRE.

The huge increase was revealed in a survey by the charity – formerly the Campaign to Protect Rural England – which looked at property tenures over a five-year period between 2016 and 2021.

It showed that 148,000 homes, stood empty for large parts of the year.  Most of them were in staycation hotspots, a CPRE spokesperson added.

“Our data shows startling figures in locations such as Cornwall, Devon, South Lakeland and Northumberland,” the spokesperson said.

In the survey of property listings between 2016 and 2021, South Lakeland saw a 1,231% increase in short-term lets.

About half the families on waiting lists for social housing in the area could be homed if the holiday rentals were available on the property market, the spokesperson suggested.

In Cornwall, where short-term lets grew by 661% to 15,000 over the five-year period, all of the 15,000 waiting families could be housed.

Crispin Truman, CPRE chief executive said there has been a massive shift into an unregulated short-term rentals market that didn’t exist six years ago.

A man is attempting to create a photographic record of every stone stile in Gloucestershire after becoming “alarmed” at how fast they are disappearing.

Peter Wilson, from Inchbrook, said each stile had a story attached to it.

“They’re a record of ancient rights of way, or even a route to the nearest ale house,” he said.

Mr Wilson is working with the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) to create an online map of every stile.

Stiles are structures built into fences of animal enclosures which allow walkers to cross them safely.

Ramblers are invited to submit photos of stiles they encounter, with over 150 submissions to date.

“Some of them date back to the 13th Century, but they seemed to go out of use around 1800 and very few have been built since then,” said Mr Wilson.

“Stiles have always been part of our heritage and we should have a record of where they were.”

Many of these structures are now being replaced to meet accessibility requirements for ramblers.

Half of all council-owned farms across England have been closed down, as campaigners say authorities could profit from selling their produce.

The farms, set up at the end of the 19th century to encourage young people into farming, are in “terminal decline”, according to the Campaign To Protect Rural England (CPRE).

Now, cash-strapped councils are shutting them down, losing over 15,000 acres of farmland in the last decade, with 60 per cent of this sold off in the last two years.

This is despite the fact campaigners argue that they have a “huge potential to generate income, provide an opportunity to promote innovative farming methods and deliver environmentally sustainable farming” as well as being carbon sinks, tackling the climate emergency. 

A new report from CPRE done in conjunction with the New Economics Foundation, Shared Assets and Who Owns England shows  more than 50 per cent of county farm estates have disappeared over the past 40 years.

Relaxing green belt restrictions would be highly unpopular with voters, campaigners have warned, after Boris Johnson promoted several advocated of major planning reform to his Cabinet.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England is expected to publish a new poll showing that 63 per cent of the population oppose changes making it easier for homes to be built on green belt land – the protected zones across the country designed to prevent urban sprawl.