How to solve Yorkshire Dales housing crisis – Yorkshire Post Letters

From: Gerald Hodgson, Spennithorne, Leyburn.
How can provision of affordable housing be increased in all rural areas?How can provision of affordable housing be increased in all rural areas?
How can provision of affordable housing be increased in all rural areas?

YOUR headline “Rural communities at risk unless housing crisis tackled” (The Yorkshire Post, June 24) draws attention to a situation that cannot be addressed by any current government policies.

First, the Government’s measure of “affordable” is 80 per cent of open market value, which is clearly absurd when the average house price in the Yorkshire Dales National Park is £307,000, 80 per cent of which is £246,000 – wildly beyond the means of a large proportion of the population.

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But there is a solution if the Government will abandon its ideological commitment to the right to buy.

There is a national shortage of affordable housing - in urban and rural areas.There is a national shortage of affordable housing - in urban and rural areas.
There is a national shortage of affordable housing - in urban and rural areas.

The rise in house prices over many years has resulted in a huge increase in the value of land for open market residential development. Typically, an acre of farmland granted residential planning permission leaps from a value of £8,000 to £1m.

I suggest that extra sites should be designated for affordable housing in perpetuity to be owned by a public authority. The value of this land should be a small fraction of the value for open market housing.

This would enable houses to be built and let at truly affordable rents, enabling people of normal means to get a decent roof over their heads.

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Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

Almost certainly you are here because you value the quality and the integrity of the journalism produced by The Yorkshire Post’s journalists - almost all of which live alongside you in Yorkshire, spending the wages they earn with Yorkshire businesses - who last year took this title to the industry watchdog’s Most Trusted Newspaper in Britain accolade.

And that is why I must make an urgent request of you: as advertising revenue declines, your support becomes evermore crucial to the maintenance of the journalistic standards expected of The Yorkshire Post. If you can, safely, please buy a paper or take up a subscription. We want to continue to make you proud of Yorkshire’s National Newspaper but we are going to need your help.

Postal subscription copies can be ordered by calling 0330 4030066 or by emailing [email protected]. Vouchers, to be exchanged at retail sales outlets - our newsagents need you, too - can be subscribed to by contacting subscriptions on 0330 1235950 or by visiting www.localsubsplus.co.uk where you should select The Yorkshire Post from the list of titles available.

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Sincerely. Thank you.

James Mitchinson

Editor

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