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Rural affordable housing levels have halved in past five years, says CPRE

The level of affordable housing provision by rural councils has halved in the past five years, according to a new study by countryside lobby group the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE).

According to CPRE, 35 per cent of new dwellings in non-metropolitan shire districts and unitary authorities were affordable in 2011/12, but in 2015/16, this had decreased to just 16 per cent.

The figures include a sharp drop between 2014/15 and 2015/16, from 33 per cent to 16 per cent.

CPRE’s research also shows that just five of the 15 most unaffordable districts outside London have met their local plan's affordable housing target.

In Epping Forest, the tenth most expensive borough outside of London, the research says that just 14 per cent of new housing over the past five years has been affordable.

However, the borough’s local plan affordable housing target is 40 per cent, which, the campaign group claims, means it has met just 35 per cent of its target.

According to CPRE, councils no longer receive direct government funding for affordable housing and very few recently have been building homes themselves.

This means affordable housing provision depends on conditions being imposed on developers when they are granted planning permission.

However, the organisation says that developers use viability assessments to argue that they can no longer build the required proportion of affordable homes in their development.

Paul Miner, CPRE planning campaign manager, said: "Many councils are falling woefully short of their targets to provide affordable homes. Yet you also have to look at those developers who continually use shady tactics to renege on promises to build affordable homes and new community infrastructure. These are often the promises that win them permission in the first place.

"Developers have councils in a bind. It’s either fewer affordable homes or missed housing targets. Either way, it’s young people and local people in need who lose out."

Miner said the next government should "reduce the power of these viability studies, stop highly profitable developers gaming the system and give councils the hard cash to start building houses again".

An Epping Forest District Council spokeswoman said: "Wherever we can accommodate new housing, we want to ensure as far as possible that at least 40 per cent of it is affordable.

"We have a very good track record of delivering affordable housing with housing associations who would normally be our preferred choice."

She added that Epping Forest was "one of a select number of councils that are also addressing the affordable shortage with our own council house-building programme".

CPRE said it used Office for National Statistic figures to calculate local authority affordability levels and Department for Communities and Local Government data to work out the number of new affordable homes being built.

The findings can be found here.

Source: Planning Resource

7 June 2017