Memorandum by CPRE
1. CPRE welcomes the opportunity to contribute
to this inquiry. We are acutely aware of the importance of the
rented sector, both in meeting housing needs and for the economy,
on which labour mobility depends. We believe that both the private
rented and social housing sector have an important but undervalued
role to play in meeting housing needs. We are concerned that the
focus on home ownership in recent years has devalued renting to
the extent that it is viewed by some as an inferior form of accommodation.
Yet in many prosperous countries, such as Germany and Switzerland,
more people rent than own their homes.
2. CPRE believes there is a major crisis
in the lack of provision of social rented housing. The decline
in social housebuilding over recent decades and the loss of affordable
homes without replacement through Right to Buy has led to the
residualisation of the remaining stock, while council and housing
association waiting lists have risen sharply. Some communities
have been left with very little social rented housing at all.
3. In rural areas, in particular, the supply
of social rented housing is considerably below the national average,
with social housing comprising an estimated 5 per cent of homes
compared with 23 per cent nationally (Affordable Rural Housing
Commission, final report May 2006). With average rural incomes
at £17,400 and average rural house prices standing at £172,500
local people would need to borrow 9.9 times their salary to afford
to own their own home. The implications of the lack of supply
of social rented housing are twofold: rural communities become
increasingly unbalanced as people on low incomes, often younger
households, are priced out; and people must travel further to
work and gain access to essential services, with consequences
for the level of carbon emissions. That is why CPRE joined forces
with the National Housing Federation last year to produce an Affordable
Rural Housing Charter a copy of which is attached as an annex
to this paper. We urge the Committee to consider this as part
of the current inquiry.
4. CPRE supports the Affordable Rural Housing
Commission's call for 11,000 affordable homes to be provided each
year in rural areas, 7,600 of which should be social rented homes.
While we recognise that shared ownership has helped widen housing
choices, in our view its role is limited since for many households
it is too expensive and they will continue to rely on social rented
housing to meet their needs. Yet, while the Commission's report
was published almost a year ago, we are concerned at the lack
of evidence of Government action to address its findings.
5. There is an urgent need for increased
investment and new policy measures to help remedy this lack of
social rented housing. Planning policies have a critical role
to play. We welcome many of the measures put forward in the Government's
new policy on planning for housing PPS3. In particular, we support
its emphasis on "mixed communities"", the provision
for allocating sites solely for affordable housing, adopting lower
thresholds and higher quotas for affordable housing provision,
and the use of conditions to ensure that homes remain affordable
and available to local people who continue to have a need to live
or work in an area. While it is important that these policies
are effectively implemented on the ground, we believe that they
will be inadequate unless complemented by a significant increase
in the public funding of affordable housing, with rural areas
receiving a proportionate share.
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