March 26th 2024
Ramped up rural house prices are forcing locals into renting
Living in the English countryside could become a temporary luxury as the costs of buying a property have forced thousands into renting, a new report has found.
Last week, the County Councils Network (CNN) published their new report which found a 19% increase in rural renting has outpaced rises in London and other English cities.
In addition, experts also discovered that house prices in rural counties are the most unaffordable outside London at an average of £309,000. The news comes as the government are currently working towards creating a fair, affordable housing system.
Launched in 2020, the government created the Affordable Housing Scheme, which, according to statistics that were reported last month, has already supported the delivery of over 6,000 affordable homes. However, the news that more than half a million people in the countryside have had to resort to renting question whether this scheme is doing enough.
The new report from CNN highlighted that the number of households in private and social rented properties in rural areas has increased by 550,000 between 2011 and 2021.
Against this backdrop, researchers discovered that rented properties – both social and private – now make up almost one third of all housing in England’s county council regions.
Breaking this statistic down, the report found that in private renting there had been a 31% increase – higher than London’s rise of 25%. Moreover, experts also discovered that rural homelessness had climbed by 18% within the last three years.
Richard Clewer, housing and planning spokesperson for CNN, said: ‘It is widely accepted that the housing crisis is one that is worsening, with rising unaffordability locking hundreds of thousands out of getting onto the property ladder.’
‘This report does not suggest that we alleviate these issues by concreting over our countryside,’ Clewer adds. ‘Instead it sets out a number of important yet easily deliverable recommendations that, taken together, could accelerate the delivery of new homes of all tenures where there is most need.’
As a result of these findings, the CCN is calling on the government to lay out a new plan for rural housing, with greater focus on social housing and a review of the right-to-buy policy that has seen affordable rental properties taken off the market.
The right-to-buy policy is a government scheme that allows for most council tenants to buy their council home at a discount.
Commenting on the news, a spokeswoman from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said: ‘We are committed to creating a fair housing system that works for everyone in both urban and rural areas, including increasing first-time buyer numbers in all regions and boosting availability of new, genuinely affordable housing.’
Image: Sven
Rural affordable housing boosted by the launch of a new scheme