“There were periods over the last year where there were no properties at all to rent in the town or even a few miles into the surrounding area.”

That observation must have come from people living in the places we know as property hotspots, right? Wrong.

One of the ongoing narratives we heard over the course of the pandemic was how remote working was leading people to give up city life in favour of bigger, cheaper and more rural living. For many people with desk-based jobs, there was no need to be within travelling distance of the office any more, so expensive flats in and around London and other major cities were traded in for houses in the countryside or by the sea.

Something we heard less about, though, was the impact on people living in those regions where property increased in popularity over lockdown. Lowri, a 29-year-old classroom assistant and freelance writer living in the Welsh county of Gwynedd, home to the Snowdonia National Park, says the influx of people coming to Wales over the pandemic was “overwhelming”.

Rural property prices are at an all-time high, as more Brits swapped city life for country living in lockdown.

In fact, according to the 2021 Rural Property Report by Coulters Property, houses in rural areas have risen by 20.8% in the last five years — a 3.3% higher increase than in urban areas. We might be spending more time at home, but lockdown has sparked rural relocations, giving many the chance to reconsider where to live.

Their research found that Harborough in Leicestershire is one of the most expensive rural areas to reside, with the average house price reaching £328,172 in 2020. In second and third place came East Northamptonshire and Rutland in the East Midlands, respectively, due to their sharp rise in property prices.

BARNARD Castle has been revealed as the most affordable rural location to move to.

City life isn’t for everyone. Removal quotes specialists Compare My Move looked at rural locations in England and Wales, comparing data on the quality of life in each town and village to find the top spots for a rural relocation.

The company ranked over 75 rural locations on factors such as average house price, median full-time salary, average sunlight hours and precipitation and wifi speed using data from local authorities, ONS, the Met Office and Zoopla.

Barnard Castle topped the list for the most affordable countryside locations to relocate to, ranking the first cheapest rural area based on average property price. 

The average house price in the County Durham town is £188,327.

It is followed by Ambleside, just an hour and a half drive away from Barnard Castle, where the average house price sits at £198,316.

However, if the North’s weather is not for you and you’re looking for a sunny UK relocation, Chichester should be at the top of your list with 1,920.8 hours of sunlight in an average year. 

Plans for a new town in rural Sussex backed by one of the Conservative party’s biggest donors and close allies of Prince Charles, are exposing a split in the Tory party over how to rapidly accelerate housebuilding.

Kingswood, a scheme for 2,850 homes, is being proposed on open fields at Adversane near Horsham which have been assembled by hedge fund billionaire Sir Michael Hintze who has given £4.6m to the Conservatives. Its design is partly inspired by Poundbury, the ersatz Georgian town in Dorset created by Prince Charles, and Sir Michael Peat, the Prince of Wales’s former private secretary is a director of the development company.

But it is being opposed by local Conservative MP Andrew Griffith, who said it is “the wrong type of development in the wrong place” and local Tory councillors who have warned: “No community wants this on their doorstep.” It looks set to be a test case for the government’s controversial new planning strategy announced last month which is set to relax national planning rules and set significantly higher local housebuilding targets in areas including Horsham.

An hour away on the train from London, the cathedral city of Winchester has long appealed to people working in the capital and looking to move out. But the months of lockdown have sent the Hampshire town’s rental market into overdrive, with inquiries over this summer running at 19 times last year’s levels.

Data from two large estate agents, shared with the Observer, shows that the “race for space” and a desire to prepare for a winter spent mainly at home are rapidly reshaping the property market.

Prices are on the increase in green and pleasant commuter towns, while rents for flats in some areas of central London are sharply down, by up to 20%. The Nationwide house price survey showed the average price of a home in the UK last month was just over £226,000, up 5% on a year earlier, and the fastest rate of increase since 2016.

Some of that increase is down to pent-up demand from those who would have moved during lockdown; some is down to the temporary stamp duty cuts. But Robert Gardner, Nationwide’s chief economist, also points to behavioural shifts as people “reassess their housing needs and preferences as a result of life in lockdown”.

Nationwide pointed in particular to the south-west of England and the commuter towns surrounding London, where house prices were up by more than 5% year on year in the third quarter of 2020.

Many house hunters at the top end of the property market say having a dedicated space to work from home has become a bigger priority, a survey has found.

The research also suggests more prospective buyers could be expanding their searches to look for well-connected village locations where they can split their working week between home and their office.

Savills surveyed nearly 700 registered buyers and sellers in the prime property market between April 21 and 27 to find out how their attitudes to moving have changed during the coronavirus crisis.

The prime property market generally includes the top 5% to 10% of homes by value, depending on where properties are located in the UK.

Some 49% of those surveyed said they will be more inclined to work from home even after lockdown restrictions are lifted.

As a consequence 44% said a separate work space has become more important, rising to 61% of under-40s. Savills said good access to Wi-Fi is also becoming more valued, with 48% saying its availability is now more important.

“It is clear that the current crisis has made people think more about the space they live in, the attributes they most value in a home and in some cases, where they want to live, all of which is likely to drive activity at the top end of the market as we come out of lockdown,” said Lucian Cook, Savills head of residential research.

British-French architect Jonathan Burlow has designed a minimal extension to a house in Hythe, Kent. With its large windows, neat brick exterior and pitched roof the extension follows and abstracts surrounding houses, yet has also been inspired by 18th century rural grain store buildings found in the south of England.

Burlow, who founded his studio in 2018, echoed the properties of grain store buildings through the design. Just like the traditional grain stores that were raised upon saddle stones to protect grain from vermin and water seepage, Burlow raised the extension up onto a concrete platform, which extends into the garden to form a simple patio.

This decision expresses the extension is an independent volume – slightly separated from the main house, with a small cantilever over the immediate landscape. While the exaggerated traditional ‘house’ elements such as the pitched roof also unite it.

England’s housing market is broken, the government has admitted, with home ownership a “distant dream” for young families, as it unveiled a white paper promising a fresh wave of home building.

The communities secretary, Sajid Javid, told the House of Commons that average house prices had jumped to 7.5 times average incomes and rents in many places swallowed more than half of take-home pay.

He placed the blame almost entirely on low rates of house building, telling MPs that the number of home completions in England has been lower than anywhere else in Europe, relative to the population, for the last three decades.

Javid said house building needs to rise to 225,000 to 275,000 units a year compared with 190,000 built in 2016 and as little as 95,000 following the financial crisis. But the white paper warns that the density of development in England’s urban areas will have to increase, and home sizes may shrink.

“Our housing market is broken,” he told MPs. “We have to build more, of the right homes in the right places, and we have to start right now.”

Every local council will be forced to publish projections for local house building, developers will be forced to use-or-lose planning permission once granted, older people will be given incentives to move out of underused big homes, and tenants will be given extra protection.

Labour’s housing spokesman, John Healey MP, condemned the white paper as “feeble beyond belief”.

Rural landowners have reminded the Government not to forget the needs of rural communities by setting out five action points on how to help solve the ‘acute shortage’ of homes in the countryside.

The CLA which represents landowners, farmers and rural businesses said the Government ‘must understand’ that the housing shortage is ‘felt just as keenly’ in the countryside as it is in towns and cities.

The organisation urges Government to address this in the upcoming Housing White Paper due out next week.

CLA President Ross Murray said: “We want to support young families, local workers and those in the community who are ready to downsize.

“Housing costs are spiralling so providing more houses people can afford is the only way to sustain rural communities for future generations and ensure people have the opportunity to live and work in the countryside.

“Ministers must not forget our rural areas when they set out their housing policy plan later this month. CLA members provide nearly 40% of all private rented housing in rural areas and many are also local employers.

This could be a key plank in the fightback – the first Neighbourhood Plan (which set out an innovative rural housing agenda in Upper Eden) was a positive straw in the wind – it was also rooted in pragmatic local enthusiasm for a better housing offer in rural areas, it has been followed by others. The garden village movement builds on the very interesting evidence that rural dwellers often want rather than reject more housing. Ebenezer Howard is smiling down on us….

This article explains:

Fourteen garden villages are to be built across England on sites including a former airfield and green belt land, ministers have said.

The villages, totalling 48,000 homes, will not be extensions of existing small towns or villages, but “distinct new places with their own community facilities”, the government said.

Sites from Cornwall to Cumbria have been identified in the first round of approved locations, making them eligible for a share of a £6m government technical and financial support fund. After completion, the villages may vary in size from 1,500 homes up to 10,000.

The housing minister, Gavin Barwell, said the development of the villages would be locally led by communities rather than central government. “New communities not only deliver homes, they also bring new jobs and facilities and a big boost to local economies,” he said.