Demand outstripping supply for rural housing, watchdog warns

The Commission for Rural Communities has said housing needs are not being evenly matched to include rural areas and demand for housing in the countryside will accelerate at a far quicker rate than in urban areas.

Figures from the Land Registry show four out of every five new houses built in the past five years in the UK were in towns and cities and the number of new build properties in rural areas has decreased every year since 2002.

The CRC highlighted "western and central parts of Yorkshire" as places where household growth is expected to be very high but where market supply is very low.

And in total, the CRC said it expects more than 71,000 new households to be created each year in rural areas over the next 25 years, with population growth to be the main driver behind this.

An extract of the study read: "Our analysis of Land Registry data on rural property transactions involving newly built properties shows that the levels of annual supply of market housing in rural areas over the past decade will only partially meet the increasing demand for housing suggested by data on housing projections.

"Many rural households already find that the rural housing market fails to meet their housing needs and increasing numbers of households will therefore put further reliance for the supply of their housing on the social sector.

"Young people, especially young families, and those working in rural areas for relatively low wages, are often the first to be priced out of their own rural communities. Losing these groups from rural society undermines the sustainability of many rural villages and towns as essential friend and family networks can be lost or disrupted"

The news comes after it was revealed the number of vacant houses in rural areas in the UK has risen to more than 280,000, compared with 233,500 in 1997 with the number of empty houses in the countryside rising at a far faster rate than in towns and cities. They can remain vacant for numerous reasons, including maintenance problems, disrepair, housing sales and migration to urban areas.

A CRC spokesman giving greater power to communities to determine where houses should be built would provide a step in the right direction.

"To accommodate new growth in our rural towns and villages rural communities should be at the heart of community-led planning to deliver housing that meets their local needs," he said.

"We believe that growth, if well managed, will foster more viable local services, more affordable and well designed housing, and appropriate economic development."

The view tallies with that put forward in the rural manifesto of campaigning body the Countryside Alliance.

James Legge, head of its political section, told the Yorkshire

Post: "The issue of affordable housing in rural communities is not getting better but rather is getting worse year-on-year."