Briefing paper on Rural Housing
Statement
Britain has experienced a series of affordable housing crisis in the early 1980s and early 1990s (Bramley, 1994). As Andrew Stonell (2010) stated “Localism works-all over the country there are villages very keen to have low-cost housing for local people and they are prevented by the planning system from having it.” This briefing paper refutes Stonell’s claim and is written to the North Eastern Farming and Rural Advisory Network, which is one of new Rural and Farming Networks. The purpose of this paper is indicating the scale and causes of the rural housing crisis, and demonstrating how the planning system enable the process of affordable rural housing, then some recommendations on solve the delivery problems in rural areas.
Background
According to Milbourne (2006), rural housing associates complex economic with socio-cultural processes in countryside areas. Housing in Britain is distributed through the market mechanism, the Labour Administration launched “communities plan” in 2003, focusing on ‘stable housing markets’ to create encompassing, vibrant and sustainable communities (Gallent et al ., 2008).
However, the housing price has been increasing over the years, the stock growing 185,000 per annum. Planning Policy Statement 3 (DCLG, 2006) provide information about the scale of housing crisis. Few areas had high house cost in the early decade, such as London and the South East, but currently there are lots of areas are facing high housing price problem. First time buyers find it quite difficult to buy a house in the market, and this circumstance occurs in most rural areas and smaller settlements. Moreover, the Countryside Agency (2003) reported that almost half of the rural people would have to undertake over 50% of their income in order to afford a home with a mean cost in their district. An estimation has been made by Countryside Agency, in the prospective 10 years period, a
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