Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether she plans to launch a further consultation on changes to the National Planning Policy Framework to reduce the cost and complexity for community-led housing providers aiming to build small numbers of affordable homes in rural communities.

The government recognises that community-led housing delivers a wide range of benefits, including additional housing supply, empowering communities, achieving high quality design and strengthening the co-operative economy. We are committed to making it easier for community-led developers to develop new affordable homes and to improving the quality of life for people living and working in rural areas.

I am committed to working with representatives of the community-led housing sector to consider how the government may support the growth of community led housing over the long term and I recently met with the Chief Executive of the Community Land Trust Network and other stakeholders to that end.

Our revised National Planning Policy Framework, published on 12 December, strengthened provisions to support community-led housing, providing extra clarity and flexibility on the groups that may bring forward community-led housing and on the size of community-led exception sites.

We intend to give further consideration to how policy can better promote rural affordable housing as part of our work to produce a set of national policies for decision making in 2025.