Commissioned by the Prime Minister, findings from the independent review by Matthew Taylor MP into the rural economy and rural housing were published on Wednesday (23 July).

{sidebar id=4}High house prices coupled with low wages are creating unsustainable pressures that threaten the future of England's rural communities, says the document.

New planning policies are needed to revitalise market towns, creating new neighbourhood extensions with shops and community facilities rather than endless bland housing estates, says the review.

Many people cannot afford their own home

Mr Taylor, Lib Dem MP Truro and St Austell, said: "For too many people, country life is challenging and urgent action is vital to stop villages dying and our market towns being wrecked by unsympathetic development.

"If we fail to build the affordable homes to enable the people who work in the countryside to live there, we risk turning our villages into gated communities of wealthy commuters and the retired."

Average wages for people working in rural communities are now £4,655 lower than the national average, according to the review, while first time buyer homes - the cheapest 25% - cost £16,000 more.

Young families are being priced out of the rural communities in which they work, warns the document. A mortgage now costs a higher proportion of average income in south-west England than in London.

Mr Taylor said: “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.”

The review recommends a series of major planning reforms to ensure that the economic, social and environmental needs of rural communities are at the heart of future developments.

"Endless bland housing estates crammed onto the edge of towns are often unattractive, they fail to deliver local services, shops or open spaces," said Mr Taylor.

"Residents end up driving into town for everything they need, clogging up the roads."

The review recommends that planning policy should be reviewed to end conflicting messages over sustainable development and ensure that economic, social and environmental factors are properly balanced.

The government should introduce new planning policy and an exemplar programme to discourage unsustainable estate developments from "doughnutting" market towns.

Instead, it should promote the long term growth of market towns to create "community extensions" which are attractive places to live, work and play, including local shops, workplaces, community facilities and open spaces.

The review supports new developments on brownfield or previously developed land to protect the countryside.

But it calls on the government to examine unintended consequences of practices such as "urban cramming" and the inappropriate loss of gardens and other green space.

Developments should include more publicly accessible green space serving old and new communities as market towns grow, it says.

On the subject of the rural economy, the review says planning policy should recognise that all forms of business can be appropriate in the countryside.

Likewise, it calls for an end to rules that encourage small rural businesses to move out of the countryside into urban centres as soon as they start to grow.

A more flexible approach would support work-based extensions to homes that encourage home-based working and start-up businesses, says the document.

                  See also:
                                • Campaigners look to housing report (22 July 2008)
                                • Brown to propose 'cheap rural homes' (31 March 2008)
                                • Government defends record on housing (27 February 2008)
                                • Appeal for evidence on rural housing (18 February 2008)
                                • Warning over affordable rural homes (23 November 2007)
                                • Get tough on second homes, PM told (18 November 2007)
                                • Call to boost affordable rural homes (18 October 2007)
                                • £10.2bn boost for affordable homes (16 October 2007)
                                • Watchdog welcomes housing pledge (13 July 2007)
                                • Civil servants debate housing crisis (11 July 2007)
                                • Councils 'could provide more homes (3 July 2007)
                                • PM Brown says homes are priority (27 June 2007)
                                • Pressure builds over rural housing (8 June 2007)

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