MANIFESTO: A new agenda for rural Britain
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| 'Sell church land for rural housing' |
| Written by Ruralcity Media |
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Sunday, 10 January 2010 13:15 |
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The Church of England should sell land and buildings to provide thousands of affordable rural homes, claim campaigners.
If each of the 9,600 rural Anglican churches sold or leased land, a tenth of the 100,000 affordable rural homes needed could be delivered, it said. The Church of England owns an average of 3.2ha (8 acres) of land per Anglican village church, in addition to parsonages and church halls. The federation said this meant every rural place of worship could deliver an average of one new affordable home. Declining congregations meant many rural churches were falling into disrepair or at risk of closure, said federation chief executive David Orr. Selling land for homes could help safeguard churches with money raised spent on desperately needed repairs, he added. “By making land available for housing, rural churches would increase their chances of survival and also help meet local housing need. “If rural parishes could deliver an average of one affordable home per church they would go a long way to helping us end the rural housing crisis.” Other denominations such as the Methodists and Baptists also had rural churches that could be used for affordable housing, Mr Orr claimed. Rural churches could help safeguard their future by making underused assets - such as glebe land, parsonages and church halls - available for housing. Just half an acre was sufficient to deliver four affordable homes. Churches wanting to deliver affordable housing could sell or lease glebe land to a social housing provider. Alternatively, they could adapt or exchange an existing church building and grounds for a modern new place of worship. Churches could sell land to housing associations at a price which represented the best price for the community. This would emphasise the role that new affordable homes could play in helping local families. In some cases, churches could give up their existing, often crumbling, places of worship, which were a drain on their resources. Raising income by making land available for housing would release congregations from the worry of paying for their church’s upkeep. The Church of England owns around 52,000ha (129,000 acres) of glebe land – which are controlled by 43 dioceses. Mr Orr acknowledged it would be impractical for every church to deliver affordable rural homes. But he insisted many churches would be able to deliver several units. With 750,000 people on waiting lists for affordable rural homes, churches that did so would be helping themselves and village communities. There are over 16,200 Anglican churches in England, with over 9,600 in rural areas. Trackback(0)
Comments (5)
  written by Derrick Dyas, January 25, 2010
I think David Gray in his comment on the 18th January may have missed the point about the need for affordable housing and this being assisted by the sale or long term leasing of church land.
Yes, there are empty homes in rural communities and certainly the are "enough farmers who would sell a piece of land if the price was right" but homes delivered through those mechanisms would only be available on the open market and thus probably not affordable for local people on lower incomes than the average urban family. All too frequently, the "right price" for a farmer would be land valued for "open market housing" as opposed to a more realistic value for "affordable housing". In many instances, there will be no possibility that "open market housing" will ever be built as it will be contrary to planning policy (what ever its merits). However, where a need for "affordable" housing for "local people" has been proven, through a Rural Housing Needs Assessment, as part of a Village Appraisal or Plan,then there are mechanisms to ensure that only people with a local connection get housed. The land value, in such a scenario, will be less than farmers would hope, would reflect the appropriate market and certainly would be more than agricultural value. What role the Church therefore? Whilst the Church certainly has a responsibility to ensure that it's coffers are sufficient to pay it's way, Bishops not withstanding! it also has a wider social responsibility to ensure that rural communities are sustainable and that the needs of it's parishoners are satisfied - and not just in a religeous sense. The Government has made it clear that all public sector land owners, such as the NHS, have a role to play when it comes to affordable housing and so why not the Church? Land supply is the key to ensuring affordable housing is available in rural communities and not simply the availability of finance raised through increasing Council Tax - although that is also a very good idea!
written by David Gray, January 18, 2010
The availability of land for building is not the problem. I know more that enough farmers who would sell a piece of land if the price was right. Similarly there is nothing to stop housing developers buying land as it becomes available, and then it is for local authorities to decide if they can build. However in our village and, I suspect, most villages there are unoccupied houses, which, if renovated, would more than satisfy any perceived shortage of housing. Personally I would put the emphasis on creating new jobs in the countryside and then work out how many houses might be needed. Most people I know who want to live in villages do not work anywhere near them and have to travel 20 or 30 miles to work in the town
written by Peter Morgan, January 12, 2010
There are, as always, pro's and con's to Mr Orr's argument for the Church to release land for development. The needs (or should that be greed?) of the NHF one of them. Yes, it is vital for villages to be supplied with 'affordable housing' for young local or incoming families who work in the vicinity and who are unable to afford the souped up prices caused by the influx of the affluent commuter in search of their rural idyll.
In villages where it is appropriate, I favor the Church leasing land, not selling it, and incorporating strong protection to preserve the housing stock so generated, for the local community to ensure it will continue to be diverse and vibrant. Village communities need to have young families whose children attend the local schools, who use local shops/facilities and not rely on Ocado. In this way the Anglican Church could promote and enhance village communities and reveal itself to be a Good Shepherd instead of its C19th uncaring absentee landlord image. Unfortunately, the Anglican Church does not have a good track record in respect of development and it's use of funds so released. The money is siphoned off to the centre where it is often used to pay the salary of yet another Bishop (over 100 now when in the early 1900's there were only 50 and congregations somewhat stronger then!) The Church has lost it's way and it's modus operandi reflects this. It is at the grass roots that resource needs to be applied not at the unattainable summit where the air is thin and unsustaining.
written by Ian hirst, January 11, 2010
Our Church has sold its Parish Hall to raise fund to repair the church, provide some toilets and small meeting room The sum raise has failed to achieve in it’s objective. The Blackburn Diocese now closed down the Hall under the pretext of there being asbestos in the hall.
The users have been asked to remove their equipment. Scouts, dancers etc and I understand that the hall is to be demolished. The diocese has put in an application for the site and the adjoining Glebe land to be used for housing land, leaving the Community who have supported the hall in the years past without a meeting place where Scouts and similar organisations as they have done for decades since the Hall was built in the 1960s when it replaced a former hall. No doubt in years to come when all the land has been built on for houses someone will realize how important these facilities were. Is there a need for housing land? Is there a desperate need of housing land as is it is made out to be ? I think not dependent of where you live. In the area where I live there is a great under utilisation of the existing housing stock. I live in an area where there are 700 empty houses and 600 on the waiting list. So where is the problem? I suggest that all empty properties should be brought back into use. a way to encourage this is to charge Council Tax at a 100% for the first year. 6 months after the house becomes unoccupied, the seconded year the council tax would rise by a further 100% and so on until the house becomes occupied. The effect of this would encourage owners to dispose of them or bring them into use more speedily and make the hoarding of houses, less attractive. This has been away for many years, a way of increasing the assets in cash rich businesses, which has been their objective. This practise has and is distorting the housing market causing Local Authorities to make unnecessary housing provision. The additional money raised by this scheme would help fund lower cost housing for the areas that are in need of low cost houses without having to raise funds through general taxation. There would be a reduction in the loss of valuable Church, agricultural land, land which cannot be created and so by be more environmentally friendly and assist communities to be more sustainable. Everyone except the hoarders would be in a win win situation. Oh and possibly the House Builders Association may not like idea also.
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Up to 10,000 affordable homes could be built for local families if churches leased or sold land, according to research by the 
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'Making space for worship' - in Planning magazine (12 Feb.)
You may also be interested to hear about our ecumenical online materials launched at the 2009 General Synod, 'Faith in Affordable Housing' - that details how churches can use land & assets for affordable homes
http://www.housingjustice.org.uk/site/publications/FIAH/FIAH launch brochure.pdf
We are currently fundraising for a housing enabler post to take forward this work with local churches - any ideas on likely sponsors would be gratefully received.
James