The government must ensure rural housing delivery forms a vital part of its plans to accelerate home building, or risk failure of the Housing Bill to make a difference to the countryside, according to the CLA.
The comments come in response to the plans set out by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor to accelerate house building over the next five years, which will form part of the Housing Bill to be introduced in the Autumn.
CLA President Henry Robinson said: “The delivery of affordable properties in rural areas has been woeful. If people are not able to live and work in the countryside, local communities and the rural economy will continue to suffer.
“Many rural landowners want to deliver good, affordable housing in their local areas but they are dissuaded by planning authorities and their over restrictive interpretation of national planning rules. In addition, owners of rural land who have previously provided land at very low values to housing associations for affordable housing then saw the homes being sold off into the open market, which creates an understandable reluctance to provide any more land for new affordable housing.
“For the Housing Bill plans to accelerate house building to have any impact on the ground in rural areas, local authorities must to be proactive in assessing housing need in rural areas and be forced to bring forward up to date local plans at the same time. A thriving countryside needs delivery of a planning regime which encourages landowners to bring land forward housing and ensures that planning authorities cannot turn down good affordable housing proposals on spurious grounds.”
