25 July 2008
A major shake-up of the planning system is needed to breathe new life into rural communities, ministers were told this week.
Homes in rural areas will remain beyond the reach of most buyers unless planners allow extensions to existing towns and villages for shops and other facilities, according to a review led by Liberal Democrat MP Matthew Taylor.
The review, commissioned by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, found that rural communities faced a downward spiral of decline, with services lost because those who work in them cannot afford property prices.
Instead of allowing bland housing and retail estates around traditional market towns, planning guidelines should support the growth of existing neighbourhoods and rural enterprise.
In villages, the review report added, well designed affordable housing could be provided through community-led initiatives that offered incentives to local landowners.
The Taylor Review, published on July 23, said house prices in rural areas were pushed up by large-scale migration over the past ten years. An average family-size home was £8,000 more expensive than in urban areas in 2007, even though the average wage was £7,000 lower.
Taylor, MP for Truro and St Austell, said the planning system should become 'an engine of regeneration' that creates vibrant communities rather than letting them become enclaves for the elderly and wealthy.
'In many cases, just a handful of well designed homes, kept affordable in perpetuity for local people, will make all the difference to the sustainability of a village and its services,' he said.
Housing minister Caroline Flint promised the government would take more steps to support affordable housing but said a limited ban on second homes in national parks, as suggested by Taylor, would not work or deliver the intended benefits.
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