No More Excuses: Affordable Rural Housing Works

English Rural has launched an enlightening new report unpicking the myth that has shaped housing policy for decades: ‘Rural housing is too expensive to manage.’

It comes from funders. From government. From within the sector itself. And it has quietly held back investment in rural England for years - even as villages have lost their schools, their shops, and the key workers who keep them running.

The new research carried out with Acuity Research & Practice puts that assumption to the test using Acuity's benchmarking data - 145 housing associations, around 180 performance measures.

The findings are clear.

• Management costs 44% lower than the sector average.
• Total cost per home 45% lower.
• Operating margins almost double (30.6% vs 15.4%).
• 70% fewer Stage 1 complaints. 88% fewer at Stage 2.
• 62% faster re-letting.
• 87.6% tenant satisfaction.
• 100% Decent Homes pass rate.

Of the 26 measures formally tested, 12 showed statistically significant differences. In every single one, rural providers came out ahead.

Rural housing isn’t cheap because it’s rural. But it isn’t more expensive either. The perceived ‘rural cost penalty’ in management simply does not exist.

With a £39 billion Social and Affordable Homes Programme now on the table, devolution reshaping local decisions, and over 306,000 people on rural waiting lists, the question isn’t whether rural housing works. The data answers that.

The question is whether we choose to build it.

Read the full report here.