Two decades ago this summer Britpop band Blur released their number-one hit Country House. Several governments have come and gone since then, but what is as true now as it was in 1995 is that homes for everyday people (rather than the city high-flyers in Blur’s lyrics) are in critically short supply.
“It is a problem across the whole country, not just the South East,” says Fenella Collins, head of planning at rural lobby group CLA. And she highlights some of the latest figures to prove the point (see graphic overleaf). Fewer than 8,000 rural affordable properties have been delivered by housing associations through the Homes and Communities Agency’s affordable homes programme over a three-year period. “That’s a drip in the ocean,” says Collins, “and has been for many years.”
Some commentators say that schemes such as permitted development rights to allow conversion of farm buildings to dwellings will increase the supply of new rural homes. But there have been hiccups (see box below), and planning experts point out that the number of homes created in this way will be limited.
Guy Maxfield, associate director of Manchester-based Indigo Planning, notes: “These rules are intended to increase the supply of housing in rural areas but they are ambiguous and more than half of applications were turned down in the first six months of the changes coming in to force.
“In any case, the total number of applications across the country between April and September 2014 was only 834,” he adds.
Conversion costs are also likely to be higher than new-build – up to 50% more, according to Strutt & Parker.
So what can be done to boost the number of houses being built? Jason Beedell, head of research at Savills Smiths Gore, says more neighbourhood plans would help to identify sites for development in the first place.
But he says: “There are too few neighbourhood plans throughout the country as communities lack the skills, finance and confidence to produce them, and their status is unclear where there is no up-to-date local plan.”
The inability of many local authorities to get their act together on updating their local plans has admittedly been a boon to some developers. However, it has frustrated those who want clarity regarding where rural homes can and cannot go, something the National Planning Policy Framework, introduced in 2012, was expected to help with.
Collins laments: “Local authorities have had many years to get local planning to conform to national planning policy – that is still a big problem.” She suggests that tackling implementation at a local level will be key to more homes.
However, Maxfield believes that a rewrite of the NPPF may be necessary. He explains: “Planning policy treats the countryside as something that should be preserved. The tension between this need for preservation and the need for housing in rural areas is only likely to be resolved through reform of the NPPF.”
One of the barriers to overcome is the resistance of local communities to support more housing in their localities. While many village residents complain that their children are unable to afford to live in the places they grew up in, they simultaneously fight proposals to increase the supply of homes in their areas.
This is another reason, says Maxfield, for the NPPF to be updated. She says: “Policy should encourage delivery of housing according to need and make it difficult for local communities to block justified development through planning.”
Case study: Peak practice
An unassuming site deep in the Derbyshire Dales may have set an important precedent in planning law – one which could pave the way for the conversion of redundant farm buildings to residential use.
Back in 2008 the owner of some derelict farm buildings in the village of Cubley applied to Derbyshire Dales district council for planning permission to convert the buildings into three dwellings. Consent was granted, but with an unwelcome financial condition attached: a contribution of nearly £80,000 towards affordable housing elsewhere in the district. This requirement, together with the simultaneous downturn in housing prices as a result of the global recession, made the project financially unviable, so it was put on hold.
When the landowner decided to resurrect the scheme last year, they found that their original planning consent had lapsed, and so approached rural specialist Fisher German for advice on making a new application.
Associate Angela Cornell says: “When I looked at the case, I saw that we would be able to take advantage of recently introduced permitted development rights.” But the application was refused on the grounds of unsustainability.
Cornell recalls: “We were surprised, as we believed we met all the relevant criteria: we were proposing no more than three homes, they totalled 3,800 sq ft, well under the 4,800 sq ft maximum limit, and no additional access was required. Plus the council had previously approved exactly the same scheme.”
Things took a turn for the better when the council, which revealed it had been refusing all permitted development rights applications of this type, suggested a way to resolve the impasse. There was a catch, however: the landowner would need to make an affordable housing contribution. Fisher German stuck to its guns and soon afterwards the government issued guidance confirming that councils could not demand payment in this situation.
Despite this, and Cornell submitting further evidence highlighting public transport access, the council refused to budge. So the landowner appealed to the Planning Inspectorate. In a landmark verdict earlier this year, the council’s objections were overturned.
Cornell says: “The fact that the planning inspectorate approved the project on the basis of special circumstances [that the buildings and the immediate environment would be improved] even though it accepted the council’s view that the site was in an isolated location, sets a very important precedent, which should make it easier for others in a similar situation.”
Case study: Shropshire
While many local authorities stand accused of trying to stymie rural development, some have taken a constructive approach to building more homes in the countryside.
Shropshire council is one example, says Dan Jones, head of Bidwells’ rural development team. “They view it as rural rebalancing,” he says. “In principle, they will allow development even in very small villages, if it enhances the local environment.”
And the council is using a carrot rather than a stick to achieve the latter objective – allowing up to 90% of the community infrastructure levy raised by new housing to be spent directly on local facilities within the parish where the development takes place.
Hardliners may say the scheme smacks of bribery, but Jones cites an almost universally welcomed proposal for 17 new houses in a village.
He adds: “What is important is the acceptance that making villages slightly bigger can make them more sustainable.”
