Countryside crisis

For many, the support announced to design and plan up to 10,000 new homes in rural areas up and down the land – many of them expected to be affordable for local people – is too little and too late.

Countless businesses, shops and pubs have already gone to the wall,

while the Government has offered little or nothing in support.

Often it has been the most vulnerable who have suffered, particularly pensioners and low-income families, who have been left isolated or

forced to move away by the catastrophic decline in rural services,

while the dearth of affordable housing is a disaster which will undoubtedly haunt rural Britain for years to come.

John Healey, the Housing Minister, has admitted that the lack of affordable homes for local people is "acute" and goes on to accept that people have to stay in the countryside for it to prosper.

Yet it is hard to see how this will happen. Latest figures show fewer than one in five families in Craven and Ryedale in North Yorkshire can afford to get on the housing ladder. Rural homes are typically 40,000 more expensive than those in urban areas.

The announcement will also help to bring to fruition plans for 1,000 new homes in Northallerton and as many as 500 new homes in Bridlington, of which 40 per cent will be affordable.

For too long, piecemeal development in the countryside by individuals and the big building firms has lacked focus on long-term local needs and instead focused on expensive speculative developments aimed

at outsiders.

The Government and local councils must take a lead and get to grips with this crisis. The future of our countryside is too precious for it to be left to a market which is ultimately failing all the people living in it.