Call for action on countryside ‘housing crisis’

The Country Land and Business Association (CLA) says urgency is needed to keep up with the projected growth in the number of households – and providing a means for succession in farming should be a priority.

An increase in retirement accommodation would enable people to pass on farm holdings to a younger generation and help clear the “tenancy logjam” that is hampering the industry’s future, the CLA says.

The crisis already equates to an estimated shortfall in housing supply of some 230,000 homes a year, it claims, and the Government predicts that the number of households in Yorkshire and the Humber alone is expected to grow by 31 per cent between 2008 and 2033, to more than 2.8 million.

It is a crisis that is “blighting a generation”, the CLA’s newly published five-year housing policy says.

Dorothy Fairburn, the organisation’s regional director for the north of England, said: “New homes are urgently needed to keep communities in the countryside alive.

“Without this housing, we will lose the young people and services needed to keep rural areas economically viable.

“More retirement homes are also needed in rural areas so older people can pass on farm holdings to the next generation.”

The policy document, entitled Tackling the Housing Crisis in England, proposes a raft of other recommendations to ease the housing crisis. Its proposals include encouraging private landowners to build affordable homes by broadening the types of provider accepted by councils; recognising that landowners can pool their resources to speed up the creation of garden cities; and using welfare reform as a means for extending the range of housing.

More new homes for first-time buyers and for existing owners to be able to move into to downsize are needed, the CLA says, as well as changes to the tax regime which is seen as a “fundamental block” to new housing supply, particularly in the rented sector.

Mrs Fairburn added: “Our recommendations reflect a vision where you no longer have to live in an urban location to work effectively.

“In conjunction with improvements to transport policy and rural broadband delivery, our proposals will help to level development land values across the country.”

Mark Bridgeman, who chairs the CLA’s national housing working group, added: “How the Government delivers housing supply is crucial to a range of inter-connected issues – including the North-South divide, an ageing population and an economy that is still recovering from the global financial crisis.”

The Labour Party has blamed a broken housebuilding industry for the country’s failure to build enough homes.

In plans announced earlier this month, Labour said it would force local authorities to include more small sites in their five-year housing plans and guarantee access to public land for small housebuilders in an effort to shake up the construction industry.

Developers would have to register the land they own or have an interest in under a Labour government and the party says it is committed to building a new generation of new towns and garden cities.

Housing Minister Kris Hopkins, the Conservative MP for Keighley, dismissed Labour’s proposals as “top down targets” and said housebuilding was at its highest levels since 2007.

Measures to stimulate the housebuilding industry across the country were announced as part of the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement. George Obsorne pledged that the Government will deliver a £1bn, six-year investment programme to fund infrastructure needed to unlock new large housing sites, a move which he said would lead to around 250,000 new homes being built across the country.

The Government says it has delivered 170,000 new affordable homes since 2010.