Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 Committee Report

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome this debate and commend the report of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and his committee and the attention the report brings to the needs of our rural communities. This is Rural Housing Week and this debate is a great opportunity to recognise that our countryside faces huge challenges. It is at a crossroads and we will not set out on the right path unless we recognise the vital role of genuinely affordable housing in creating thriving rural communities. An understanding of this, together with the report’s recommendation for adequate rural proofing of our housing and planning policies, is critical to the future survival of rural communities. I declare an interest as the chair of the National Housing Federation, the trade body representing England’s housing associations.

I concur with the committee’s report that current government policy does not take enough account of either the specific needs of rural communities or the challenges facing them. For too long, these issues have been sidelined and not considered in the context of wider policy-making. We can feel this perhaps most bitterly in the housing crisis, which is too often focused on and dealt with as a solely urban issue. Our rural towns and villages are home to 9 million people. Rural life offers a sense of community and the opportunity to live surrounded by some of our most beautiful scenery, but the housing crisis is damaging our rural areas and threatening this way of life. People are not always familiar with this picture of the countryside but our rural communities are feeling the pressures of the broken housing market as much as the cities are.

A quality, affordable home feels out of reach for many. The most affordable homes cost 8.3 times average wages in rural areas. As local people struggle to remain in their communities, we are seeing the loss of vital services. Schools in rural areas are closing at an average rate of 11 per year and we are losing post offices in rural communities at an average of three per month. It must be a real concern that the average minimum travel time to a hospital in rural areas is 60 minutes, nearly double that in urban areas. The services that people need are not where they need them. It would be very easy to be disheartened but this can be fixed.

The report is exactly right that rural affairs should be linked more closely to the work of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, recognising the close link between the survival of our rural communities and access to housing. The National Housing Federation and housing associations believe that genuinely affordable homes are the key to supporting rural communities to thrive. The federation’s Rural Life Monitor showed in 2017 that when housing associations work in partnership with local people, including local government, to build even a small number of affordable homes, vital community services stay open.

By building just four affordable homes on Holy Island, Bernicia Homes was able to help keep the island’s sole primary school open. The local post office in Toller Porcorum in West Dorset would have closed when it reached the end of its lease without the intervention of Aster Group and a team of residents living in the village. The community and the housing association worked together to build six affordable homes and a new building for the post office. These are services that add value to rural life, offer opportunities and often employment for families and young people and can really make the difference between a community being viable or not.

Access to affordable homes can enable generations to stay in close proximity, keeping families together and tackling the other scourge of rural living, isolation and loneliness. These homes provide critical support for the rural economy, including the farming and food economy. DAMHA, the Durham Aged Mineworkers’ Homes Association, an extraordinary and historic association, owns and manages 1,700 properties on 130 sites in 80 villages in the former County Durham coalfield, one of the most challenging areas in the north-east with huge regeneration challenges. Part of its mission is to assist in the regeneration of coalfield communities.

These housing associations are anchor organisations in their communities. They act as both landlord and employer and provide a whole host of lifeline services for local people. They are already building the quality homes our rural communities need, but they want to go even further. They have an ambition to deliver, but how can they, when current planning and land policy is not adequately rural proofed? The revised national policy planning framework gives us an immediate opportunity to do just that and to implement the report’s recommendation to rural proof policy. Many of the draft proposals for the revised NPPF should be welcomed for their ambition to make real change to deliver bigger and better.

Will the Minister say whether the impact of these policies on rural communities has been measured at all? There are instances where proposals have clearly not considered the specific complexities facing rural communities. I shall give one example. The proposed entry-level exception sites policy risks undermining the existing and successful rural exception sites model. The proposed model does not involve the community, the homes are not solely for local people and it does not safeguard the affordability of homes for the future. These less stringent criteria are, very unhelpfully, likely to raise land values and could damage the provision of affordable rented homes in rural areas. Unless they are revised, there are potentially very damaging implications for a model that has been successful in delivering for those most in housing need. The proposed standardised approach for measuring housing need is another example. It will not work in a rural setting where population projections are low and housing stock is less flexible. If the revised NPPF is going to meet the needs of rural communities, it must go further. It must emphasise the importance of implementing proper local plans, and it must encourage affordable housing contributions on sites smaller than 10.

As the Government consider the consultation responses for the draft NPPF, can the Minister assure us that they will listen to the concerns of rural housing associations and follow the recommendation of the committee’s report to rural proof this critical policy to ensure it does not leave rural communities behind? During this rural housing week, housing associations will be setting out the sector’s manifesto for rural housing. It states what they will do to boost rural housing supply through working in partnership with local communities, but it is also a call to action for parliamentarians. We need policies in place that can unlock the potential of rural housing associations to build the genuinely affordable rural homes we need. As we stand at a crossroads, the survival of our rural communities depends on it.