The National Rural Conference 2025

Bookings are now officially open for the National Rural Conference 2025, which will take place online from Monday 15 to Thursday 18 September.
This is the Rural Services Network’s flagship event of the year, bringing together rural decision-makers, practitioners, and advocates for four days of live, interactive sessions focused on the future of rural communities.
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North-south divide in housing targets

The Times has reported on analysis suggesting that a new housebuilding algorithm will mean that northern councils may have reduced house-building targets, while huge numbers of homes are built in the South

Last month, the Government said that it was looking to revise quotas for local councils using a formula based on ‘relative affordability’, among other factors.

The targets would be compulsory and create local ‘growth’ zones that would automatically approve developments with little input from local councillors.

In the article, the Local Government Association (LGA) compared housebuilding targets under the proposed regime with the current one and found that the results would lead to a housing boom in London and the South, with fewer homes being built in the North.

In particular, rural areas would be disproportionately affected, with some of them seeing a 59 percent increase in homes under the updated algorithm, compared with a 20 percent increase in urban areas.

Full article:

The Times - North-south divide in housing targets