There are signs of a growing problem of rural homelessness, according to the Rural Development Commission. In its annual report(*) the commission says that, as a result of increased demand for housing, average prices in many rural areas are running between four and five times average income. New building, which could ease the situation, is particularly constrained in the countryside by planning restrictions. For the growing number of rural residents who cannot afford to buy, the alternative sources of accommodation are dwindling. Landlords are tending to sell former tied cottages or to let them to holiday-makers. Much of the local authority housing stock — a traditional source of low-cost housing — has been reduced by sales.
A recent study for the RDC estimated that some 376,000 rural households will be in need of housing over the next five years. After taking account of relets, at least 116,000 additional houses will be needed, some 23,000 a year, from all sources.
According to the report, the Housing Corporation’s current financial difficulties mean that their special rural programme, already meagre, will be cut back jeopardising the efforts and, in some cases, the existence of rural housing associations. In addition there is a growing concern that the rent levels of even ‘affordable’ housing are moving beyond the reach of many people in rural areas where income levels are lower than average.
The commission spent over £12m in areas of high employment last year to provide land and industrial units giving space for over 2,000 jobs. A further 1,800 job opportunities have been created by granting £3m to private-sector-led schemes to give redundant buildings new life as work premises. And some £3.2m has been invested in loans to small rural businesses.
Last year the commission redirected resources away from those rural areas showing good signs of economic recovery towards regions still badly in need of investment and stimulus, for example the East Midlands coal-fields, where the impact of colliery closures has left people without alternative employment. Similar regeneration programmes are under way in other rural areas severely affected by the decline of traditional industries, such as Cumbria, Cleveland and East Durham. The commission expects to spend £6m over the next three years in bringing about economic, social and environmental improvements. It has recently been asked to report on the problems arising from the 750 redundancies announced in the china clay industry in mid-Cornwall and on whether special action is needed. A major survey of social conditions in rural areas is being funded jointly with the Economic and Social Research Council to pinpoint who is gaining and who is losing from the complex process of change in the countryside.
The commission’s special responsibility is to speak for the people who live and work in the countryside, says the chairman of the commission, Lord Shuttleworth. While the commission has achieved an improvement in the economic fortunes of many rural areas, there are aspects of rural disadvantage which in some cases are being masked by new-found affluence. “To preserve the countryside as a museum for the tourist or to treat it only as a refreshing dormitory for an urban workforce is not realistic,” Lord Shuttleworth observes. “Equally, whilst the commission believes that much of the economic and social development which it supports is sympathetic to the environment, it recognises the need to raise design standards, to support industry which is resource-efficient and to ensure that we hand down to our children a rural environment which is undiminished in its vitality, richness and beauty.”
Lord Shuttleworth became chairman of the Rural Development Commission in May 1990. He is a partner in a firm of chartered surveyors in Preston and runs a family farming partnership in North Lancashire and Cumbria.
(*) The Rural Development Commission Annual Report 1989-90. Rural Development Commission, 141 Castle Street, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP1 3TP. $#163;13.50.
