MEMORANDUM BY THE HARDWICKE ESTATE (RWP
38)
RURAL WHITE PAPER
WHITE PAPER
ISSUES
1. It is important that all service areas,
health, education and housing etc get away from the concept of
narrow residualised provision. We must be able to cater for a
wide range of potential customers. A lighter touch and greater
flexibility from regulators and government will allow greater
creativity to access the middle ground. Those on low but perhaps
not the lowest income.
2. The Housing Corporation's Approved Development
Programme is increasingly focused on urban centres because of:
(b) New Deal for Communities.
It is important that the Rural Programme is
protected. Top slicing must continue to be used to ensure that
resources find their way into the rural areas.
3. There needs to be recognition that rural
areas differ enormously in their character, geography and economy,
for example, to compare South Shropshire with South Warwickshire
is to compare chalk with cheese even though both are rural areas.
4. The cost of development in rural areas
is high. The small-scale nature of our developments does not fit
comfortably into the current exhortations to follow Egan principles.
Indeed it is fair to say that Egan conflicts with the concept
of local sustainable development.
(a) The basic grant rates are too low to
ensure genuinely affordable rents.
(b) A special rural multiplier is necessary
to support the higher cost of building in the countryside.
(c) This may mean building fewer houses but
of better quality and at genuinely affordable rents.
5. In order to meet national targets for
brownfield development the definition of brownfield needs to be
reviewed insofar as it applies to rural areas.
6. Measurements of poverty at the national
level do not comfortably transfer to the rural areas for example,
car ownership in the country is not a measure of wealth. Why not
measure the average ages of the vehicle which rural dwellers rely
upon?
7. Current strategies for keeping down rents
are wholly inadequate. PPI + 1 per cent is a crude and often penalising
tool, rather local strategies agreed to fulfil local needs.
8. Genuine progress could be made to provide
new housing through better use of exceptions planning and PPG3.
The needs of funders must however be recognised and outlawing
mortgagee protection clauses in Section 106 Agreements is very
useful (this is currently proposed in the revised PPG3). The result
will be either the withdrawal of funding or considerable premiums
payable.
9. The Right to Buy continues to decimate
the supply of affordable housing in rural villages (for example
South Shropshire Housing Association will this year sell 35 properties
and build only 20 or so).
RURAL HOUSING
AND THE
WHITE PAPER
I enclose some further thoughts on housing in
rural areas. This is based on my experience of living in rural
Shropshire and as chairman of South Shropshire Housing Association
(SSHA) a Large Scale Voluntary Transfer (LSVT), based in Ludlow.
1. Geographical
A clear distinction must be made between the
rural areas like, for example South Shropshire, and those which
are closer to conurbations and have more sophisticated transport
links to the urban centres. South Shropshire is characterised
by small settlements and the main market town of Ludlow has a
population of less than 10,000 people.
There is real danger in not recognising these
differences which bear importantly upon the interdependence of
town and country. The "deep" rural areas which are like
our own often have less positive relationships with the conurbation
and stresses and tensions sometimes seem to local people to outweigh
the positive benefits.
2. The Housing Context
The Government's declared vision is for a living
and working countryside, with thriving, balanced and sustainable
communities. It must, therefore, recognise the important role
which housing will play in achieving this goal.
The lack of affordable housing in rural areas
has, over the past 10 years, contributed to the out migration
of young people and single people from the countryside. They take
with them the skills and energy required for both a thriving rural
economy and community.
The Government has taken some steps to halt
the worst effects of the Right to Buy but sales are continuing
to deplete the stock of affordable homes. These sales are often
being completed with funding provided by someone other than the
(often elderly) resident. In SSHA, for example, out of stock of
approximately 1,800 houses 35 will be sold this year and only
20 will be built.
Much of South Shropshire is designated as an
"Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty" (AONB). Replacing
the lost social housing in such an environmentally sensitive area
is often very expensive because of the need (quite properly) to
use natural and local materials or the extra costs of sewerage
treatment and water supply.
Further the small-scale nature of developments
do not fit comfortably into the current exhortations to follow
Egan principles. Indeed, it is fair to say, Egan conflicts with
the concept of local sustainable development.
(a) The basic grant-rates are too low to
ensure genuinely affordable rents.
(b) A special rural multiplier is necessary
to support the higher cost of building in the countryside.
(c) This may mean building fewer houses but
of better quality and at genuinely affordable rents.
Further at present the Housing Corporation's
Approved Development Programme is increasingly focused on urban
centres because of:
(b) New Deal for Communities.
It is important that the Rural Programme is
protected. Top slicing must continue to be used to ensure that
resources find their way into the rural areas.
3. Housing Grant
The current grant system does not always provide
the most effective means of delivering rent at a price that is
truly affordable, for example:
(a) Proper Capital Grant to avoid excessively
high residual rents for newly built homes. This may well mean
a smaller overall programme but a much more effective one.
(b) Simplifying the schemework rules to allow
for the extra cost of new development in rural areas.
(c) A grant system which allows Registered
Social Landlord's (RSL's) freedom to purchase existing dwellings
which might be used for affordable housing and perhaps resold
when no longer needed, with the grant being recycled.
4. Stock Transfer
For stock transfer housing associations based
in specific rural areas the housing service is not limited to
a narrow role of landlord and tenant. Their community base and
assets should be exploited in a range of initiatives which support
communities which are often numerically very small.
The broadening of their "objects"
which is under consideration by the Housing Corporation must be
welcome but the indication is that the Housing Corporation proposes
to use its regulatory powers to restrict "non core"
activities. This apparent contradiction will hinder their ability
to meet a community's needs in imaginative and creative ways.
Obviously public money must be protected but
Housing Associations must be trusted, on the basis of a proven
track record, to use their assets for the positive support of
communities. For example, in South Shropshire some of the association's
work is devoted to the support of people with different needs
be it older people, people with learning difficulties or young
people living alone for the first time. That intervention often
saves the statutory agencies huge amounts in residential or very
specialised care.
This very valuable preventive work is mainly
paid for through the Housing Benefit system but is under threat
from present proposals to create a single budget for all "support"
services. Therefore it would be very helpful if Government were
to think again in relation to the proposals to take sheltered
housing out of the Housing Benefit system and consider the impact
the loss of warden support services might have on small groups
of older people in remote rural areas.
5. Affordable Housing
I referred earlier to the need for affordable
housing and would wish to give special attention to this. Over
the years since 1988 the gradual erosion of capital grants and
the increased reliance on private finance has resulted in increases
in rents for RSL dwellings which are not affordable and the Exchequer
has paid the price through spiralling Housing Benefit payments.
The Housing Corporation is now seeking to recover the position
through a crude rent control mechanism of RPI + 1 per cent. Surely
a local strategy to fulfil local needs would be more appropriate.
6. Planning Policy
Planning policy is crucially important to the
delivery of social housing policy in rural areas and PPG3 is presently
under review.
From experience in Shropshire the integrated
planning and housing policy of South Shropshire District Council
has delivered many of the social housing needs of the area. It
is vitally important that Government is not to be too prescriptive
particularly in relation to "exceptions sites". "What's
right is what works" and exceptions sites have worked well
for rural England but they must not be fettered by unnecessary
restrictions. For example, the proposal to outlaw "mortgagee
in possession" clauses would in my view be quite wrong and
seriously hamper the ability to undertake other housing plus type
activities. It could well result in the withdrawal of funding
or the advent of very considerable premiums.
The planning system should be sufficiently flexible
to allow for change and should recognise the need to balance environmental
protection, especially important in AONB and similar areas, with
the need to create employment and housing opportunities, which
will ensure that existing communities can be regenerated.
Partnership between the public, private and
voluntary sectors is crucial in this process but the partnership
must be real. Statutory authorities must recognise the contribution
which the other sectors make. Government has a part to play in
ensuring that proper consultation and the various parties and
agencies work together perhaps some could:
(a) Taking a fresh look at national policy
to ensure that "designations" such as AONB, SSSI's,
development area status and so on have genuine synergy and do
not conflict with overall objectives.
(b) Concentrating subsidies where they are
most needed and can have most effect.
(c) Remove the remaining examples of two
tier local Government where there is often conflict between District
and County policies.
(d) Define "brownfield" sites as
it applies to rural areas, for example, is a redundant farmyard
a "brownfield" site?
7. Poverty Indicators
Transport will inevitably create difficulties
in remote areas. Recent increases in fuel tax have hit rural areas
extremely hard and are seen as being unfair. Government should
devise a mechanism which no longer penalises people for living
and working in the countryside and having to use a motor car,
van or lorry. Cars are a necessity in rural areas, not a luxury.
Measurements of poverty at the national level
do not comfortably transfer to rural areas, for example, car ownership
is not a measure of wealth; better to measure the average age
of vehicles which rural dwellers rely on.
8. Access to Services
It is important that all service areas such
as health, education and housing get away from the concept of
narrow residualised provision. We must be able to cater for a
wide range of potential customers. A lighter touch and greater
flexibility from regulators and government will allow greater
creativity to access the middle ground. Those on low but perhaps
not the lowest income.
Robin Thompson
February 2000
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