Briefing Notes for Candidates and Electors on Rural Housing Issues

i) What are the problems?

If we want to have viable rural communities they need a sound demographic spread. The outgoing youngsters and the incoming or remaining older ones will be the cause of an elderly community. National market forces mean that those who retire from high value property markets can down size and reap the benefits from the high value of the property they are selling. Young people starting out to make a home and raise a family will not be able to compete unless they can inherit a local property or have already established a means of high income. The only hope for buying a property depends on whether they can get a run down building or site and rebuild through their own resources. Those who have done this are fully aware of how lucky they have been.

The only way of stopping the imbalances of property values between, say London, and Herefordshire would be intervention through planning controls and regulating what properties can or cannot be available to outside purchasers. Add to this the increase of city bonuses and the differences in incomes and it is no wonder that some villages and even towns become deserts from September through to March as has happened in other parts of the country. If intervention occurs however local people who want to sell will be denied the opportunity to secure the best price under unrestricted market conditions. Intervention by national Government seems unlikely but it is the only way that market forces can be prevented from emptying the countryside of young people. In so doing government subsidy would be necessary to compensate present owners

The other problem is having something to make young people want to stay or settle. In France the process of ‘desertification’ has meant that more and more farms have been left to rot. The result, an influx of British ex-pats taking advantage of the much lower prices. This is not always popular with the French. The result? : a potential elderly British population in France.

The Consequences: A viable community depends on a range of ages so that various facilities can operate. An elderly populations will give employment to doctors, but the need for schools will fall. A house bound community will be dependent on others to deliver their supplies. Public transport is unlikely to be needed for older members of the community who cannot venture out, and not very convenient for those who would like to due to the difficulty of getting to a bus stop and so on.

Elderly residents may find it hard to shoulder the burdens of local civic duties, running a church or other social activities. Young people will look elsewhere to nearby towns for their entertainment and probably change to urban living where they have a better chance of earning a living and getting accommodation. Add to this the decline in agriculture and the ‘desertification’ process gains momentum.

Shops, Churches, Chapels, Pubs, Youth Clubs, Community Centres all need money and physical support from the local community if they are to survive.

ii) What could be done?

Schools need to be maintained as a reason for youngsters to find a way of staying or moving in. Although the bureaucrats will always tell you that a bigger better school many miles away will be much better, it rarely is, and the result of the closure of the village school is to rip the heart out of the community

If nothing is done to reduce the consequences of a free housing market by national government then local communities need to nurture the idea of cheaper housing through housing associations. Currently housing associations are being told by national government to reduce their rents in line with the fall in inflation, with the result that their building budgets will be reduced. Political pressure has to be brought to bear on national politics because there is little which can be done locally in this respect. The one thing which can be done is to try and establish the places where land might be available and where demand for the housing would fit in with employment and transport opportunities etc.

Council Housing may make a come back but this seems too far in the future to make a significant contribution to halting the drift away to the towns by the young and the creations of detached elderly communities.

Empty properties should be monitored so that the local authority should make use of its powers to discourage this wasteful use. 3% of the national housing stock remains empty for more than 6 months with 1.6% being from the private sector. 20% of the population live in rural areas. Government policy on their website.



This site gives a wealth of information regarding housing generally and how owners can be helped to bring their property back into the housing pool. Such properties should be identified and the Empty Homes Agency will try to involve housing associations and the local authority in returning such properties to the housing stock. Whilst rotting ruins may be seen as having some visual amenity there is a growing recognition that if the owners cannot make use of them as part of the housing stock, local authorities will have to intervene more.

Since 2006 local authorities may issue last resort enforcement orders under the Empty Dwelling Management Orders (EDMOs). For once there seem to be some intervention powers which could be used after a property has been empty for more than six months. In rural communities there are often properties which have been left empty for much longer. Rather than going on the open market perhaps the next stage is for local authorities to find ways to bring them into a social housing pool or to give assistance to local young people in financing their purchase. Is the return of the local authority mortgage well overdue?

The second homes problem should also be analysed and consideration be given to regulation but this is again a problem of national policy rather than local. It is also complicated by the restriction of choice that central intervention could bring about. The debate to date has been rather simplistic because the phrase in effect covers several categories.

Those who buy to let for the purposes solely of letting the property out as a holiday home on commercial terms should be discouraged in areas where there is a housing shortage. In some parts of the country where the local population has moved on the empty properties are at least used to contribute something to the economy for part of the year. Those who simply buy to let as all year round homes can bee seen as making a contribution to the local housing pool as long as rents and housing benefits are in a realistic ratio.

Second Homes in Transition could cover those properties where the owners have purchased a property with a view to retirement and may be taking advantage of the differences in national house values. Others may have purchased the property as their main residence as they are in tied accommodation and the ‘second home’ is their insurance or, as is more likely, their eventual residence on retirement. The same can apply to properties which have been inherited but the new owner has to seek their living elsewhere, pending retirement. In the meantime these properties are sometimes let out as holiday lettings while be the owner may visit for weekends or longer breaks in the winter months. Others may choose to keep the property unlet.

The Second Home as a bolt hole pure and simple is probably the least valuable to the local community in removing a potential home from the market. These maybe seen as the least complicated and where the property is isolated or without facilities may not be viable units in the housing stock. However, where they would be viable there is a case for intervening by way of legislation creating special planning permission and setting maximum quotas. If a perfectly sound starter home is going to be removed from the market for this purpose then present free market laws will not prevent it. Such a property might be an ex-council house situated in a viable community with a shop, pub and good communications.

Sometimes the owners of such properties will not have any intention of getting involved in the local community because that would contradict the rationale of ‘getting away from it all’ and their retirement plans may be centred elsewhere. These owners may contribute to the local community if they shop in the area and employ local firms for building etc. They now have to make a full contribution to Council Tax. Restrictions of selling for this purpose would have to involve compensation of some kind to the original owner if the restriction reduces the sale value.

Purpose built second home complexes such as those round water parks etc are not available for housing as such due to the planning conditions, rather like mobile holiday parks which cannot be use throughout the year, and so should not be a housing issue apart from questions of land use generally.

Improvements and extensions to existing properties to accommodate younger people do happen but the biggest bug-bear is the difficulty of getting planning permission for new houses outside the designated development zones. Again there is little that can be done at the immediate level of local government and the real decisions are made at higher levels. Classic reasons for refusing permission will be that the property would be out of keeping with the landscape (even where the proposal is to rebuild a property which had been in the landscape for many years before planning control was invented) or the access is restricted for emergency vehicles, or access onto the road is inconsistent with the highways policy etc. Within these rules it seems that conversion of barns into dwellings often seems to be acceptable in many cases as does, on occasions, the demolition of an old house to make way for a modern replacement. An additional house adjoining an existing farmhouse or nearby, seems to fall outside the criteria, while housing estates can gradually grow within designated development areas. It is very frustrating for people who have access to land for building but cannot get planning permission but is it equally frustrating to see green field building occurring in a way which would undermine the visual impact of the countryside. All this against a struggling agricultural industry and at a time when food security is becoming recognized as an emerging issue. Somewhere a compromise has to be drawn as a countryside with declining agricultural use and a population imbalance might look pleasant for a while, but it will not last as the people who used to keep it that way gradually leave..

What should be done? The bullet of rural housing needs to be bitten, as indeed does the national problem of a housing shortage. From the citizens point of view this means that the opinions in favour of housing initiatives in the rural community have to be expressed and organized with both local and national politicians. The present situation is destructive of the rural community in the ways outlined above and as a society we either have to accept the consequences of a free property market e.g., desertification and demographic imbalance, or develop equitable methods of intervention.

Dacier

Getting to Grips with Rural Housing

A full discussion paper is available on request by leaving a comment

Firstly, let me make it clear that I appreciate that this can be a sensitive and highly charged topic. Having been observing the trends and listening to people’s views on the subject for more than forty years I have no illusions as to how strongly some people can feel. Secondly, I think we must all appreciate that market forces sweep us all along whether it be in past or present generations. More often than not people finish up being swept up on their residential beach by virtue of economic forces expanding or reducing their choices. Fairness to the individuals or the communities concerned does not come into it. The modern mantra seems to be that you cannot fight market forces. It would seem that in recent times, whatever the rhetoric, we cannot even moderate or mitigate their effect either.

The consequence for rural housing is that young people who have grown up in the countryside cannot afford to stay, a fact recognised this week by the Federation of Master Builders in their press release of 1.9.09:

‘The Federation of Master Builders has demanded action to increase the supply of affordable rural housing following today’s announcement by the National Housing Federation, the National Association of Small Schools, and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, that Primary schools are closing at a rate of one a month in rural England’.

Granted you can accuse them of having a vested interest in taking up this cause, but all of us who live in the countryside, for whatever reason, have a vested interest in seeing that market forces do not rumble on towards their inevitable conclusion of an absence of young people beyond higher education age. The demographic imbalance is already seeing schools, shops, post offices and pubs closing with those left behind in a landscape with an ageing population. There is a need to assess whether we like the outcomes predicted and then discuss whether there is anything we can do about it. The aim should be a viable and sustainable community.

The question at the centre of that assessment is whether intervention by central or local government is possible, whether it should be done at all, and how can competing interests be resolved. The government will say that it has already intervened into the housing market by introducing measures to reduce the number of unoccupied houses and by encouraging the building of affordable homes for local young people through housing associations. This is undoubtedly true, but it is not enough. Last week it was reported that the desire of the Government to see that social housing rents fell in line with interest payments for mortgage borrowers, would lead to a fall in the already limited funds available for new builds.

The Master Builders also reminded us of the ever present threat to our schools. Having lived in a village where the school was closed there is nothing more effective in killing a community spirit, closely followed by closing the shop, the pub and the church. Twenty percent of us live in the countryside, so why not recognise it as a worthy contrast to the city sprawls of the rest of the nation and try and maintain a healthy inter relationship? If the question has even been considered there does not appear to have been much of an answer as the original life blood of the countryside, agriculture, is seen as a marginal industry. Who cares if 50% of our milk producers have left the industry in the past 12 years or that pig farmers are following suit, or that there are many other products are having to be sold for less than the cost of production? One milk producer whose withdrawal from the industry was reported on Farming Today on BBC Radio 4 this Tuesday (1.9.09) said that he was no longer prepared to do a 70 hour week for £2 per hour. To achieve a sustainable countryside we need affordable housing, and jobs, at least within reach, so that we keep the young families we have. Without children there will be no need for schools and so the possibility of attracting young families who can afford rural properties, will have also gone. Trying to balance these competing elements while preserving the quality of the landscape is by no means easy and it is not surprising that many would rather deal with more easily solved problems. A search under Rural Housing will reveal loads of papers and bodies reporting on the problem. Meanwhile the inexorable forces do their worst in the absence of positive action.

So where should we go from here. Firstly, we should stop ignoring the question and leaving it to the hierarchy. Inhibitions and prejudices about where we are from and how long we have been here must be set aside and, as country dwellers, if we really believe this aspect of civilisation is worth maintaining, we should have a good think and press for change. As a starting point, should you want to be e-mailed a rather long draft discussion paper, please leave a comment.

Dacier

Junk Mail: It must be Monday

This blog has got a bit diverted into matters which are London centric. The only justification is that Westminster politics can absorb so much public money and time. So, by way of a change I thought I would share the contents of my junk mail with you. Firstly, there were no invitations to acquire a credit card. My efforts to stop this by sending back a message on their pre-paid postcards had no effect but the credit crunch has. Junk mail was not to bad in winter as it provides an endless supply of paper for lighting the Yorkist Range and/ or the Clearview wood burner. In the summer it soon builds up and the paper bank’s ambiguous list of wants means I don’t put the stuff in there, especially where names and address were still present. Even without the peddlers of credit I still mane age to get useless collections of leaflets. One, judging from the logo, is a Royal Mail compendium of insurance products. Another, which always amuses me, is the pizza takeaway offering delivery to our door. A twenty four mile round trip seems rather excessive for us. If we were considering picking one up coming on the way out of town a visit to one of the 24 hour supermarkets we pass might make a better buy. But for a treat it might be fun to get one delivered as suggested by the leaflet. Provision of our post code to their website quickly showed they don’t come this far.

The three other items were not strictly speaking junk. Two were Euro election leaflets from UKIP and the Green Party. We are in the same constituency as our daughter who lives two hours drive away. Since our present MEPs names were unknown to us we visited www.writetothem. We await the sitting candidates leaflets. An excellent service but the names meant little to us. As my earlier ‘Why Blog? ‘piece indicated, these political leaflets are being saved for later comment. Lord Tebbit’s advice not to vote for the main parties, if followed, could have interesting results.

My third piece of mail was a mail shot from my last employer, a college at a joyfully great distance from here. Why on earth anyone out here would want to join an association of former staff I cannot imagine, even though no membership fee is mentioned at this stage. I suppose that as higher education seems to have proceeded on the assumption that academic staff should not have a life outside the collegiate one, there must be quite a few lonely souls finding it hard to exist without the company of their old workmates. Perhaps the most amusing benefit is a discount at a well known bank. What for I ask? Buying its shares or is it for sale? Among the benefits of joining are discounts for lunch in the training restaurant and on the annual membership fee for the gym. All very fine if you have retired within a short travelling distance which is the assumption of the invitation.

The most worrying benefit which is promised is free access to the college library. I always thought it was a public library and free anyway. Does this mean that a pensioner, not a former member of staff, has to pay to use the library? If I have got this wrong perhaps someone should go on an in house copy-writing course. I am sure one would exist as such leaflets are part of the great commodity movement. Education has customers, managers, products and marketers, so it must also be sold like all the other products. It is now an industrialised process and so an item of mail like this should not be surprising. However, it is no more accessible to a rural resident than a pizza delivery service. It is however the urban mind set of both items which irritates and amuses. In other contexts such assumptions would be seen as politically incorrect. So I suppose both items have their instructive uses. But does that stop them being junk?
Dacier

‘I expect you will be going home for the Bank Holiday weekend, Jackie?’

‘ Nice of you to ask Gordon, but with it being the bank holiday I thought I’d spend a few quiet days at my second home in the country.’
‘Now that would be, don’t tell me, in Worcestershire, the town where the main industry used to be pins and needles and where Enfield motorbikes used to be made. Isn’t it now a centre for the prison industry?’ Must go Jackie, got a U -Tube thing to do.’

Meanwhile back in Redditch, the lounge has been really well tidied up, the children are wondering if this will be the time that mummy takes them back home with her, leaving behind the verdant pastures and sun soaked valleys of what has become more of a way of life for them, rather than a holiday.

Somewhere on the M4 near Swindon, Rupert is passing the time while stuck in a tail back by raising the question of whether they should still be bothering with their hideaway second home. Once they were part of the ‘zonely’ brigade. ‘Darling, you must visit one weekend, its zonely 2 hours drive from the Hammersmith fly-over.’

‘Jocasta? I suppose we really need to keep the cottage on? What with the capital gains tax implications, the need to get the holiday lets booked up, the business rates now we let it from Easter through to November, and the continuous increases in the contents and buildings insurance? Not to mention inheritance tax. It was so much better when we could afford to leave it empty for most of the year.
‘No Rupert!, the children love our occasional weekends there and besides, if things get any worse at County and Ripoff Securities, we may really need to use it as a hideaway. Especially when the depositors and shareholders realize we’ve been having ‘bank’ holidays on them for years.
Rupert looks very depressed. ‘Well darling, we already have one home, surely that’s enough. It’s not as though we have any connection with the place or actually know anyone, let alone do things in the community. Think of all those people out there with only very tiny homes, or the few with no homes at all. There must be a way round it. Of course! Working for the community! I’ll stand for Parliament! The present old boy is retiring, going to the House of Lords for services to blustering or something. We could leave the kids in the cottage with a nanny. Things would be so much simpler.’

Jocasta’s’ eyes light up, ‘And we could sell the Putney house before values fall any lower and move in with my sister and get one of those allowance thing- a- me- jigs for the cottage. Perfect!.’

Meanwhile, in a Bed and Breakfast, in nearby Swindon, the homeless persons legislation is getting good nights sleep.

Dacier

( See my earlier item in response to Mark Thomas and his Peoples Manifesto. A slightly more detailed analysis of the second homes debate will follow shortly.)