Affordable rural housing: positive planning
The planning system plays a key role in ensuring a sufficient supply of sites is available to provide affordable housing in rural areas.
The ARHC emphasised the need for the provision of affordable housing in rural areas to be an integral part of planning at the regional and local levels. It proposed some new approaches and how to use changes being introduced by the Government to greatest effect to deliver more housing in rural areas.
The Government welcomed the thrust of the Commission's report on improving delivery through more positive planning, and encourages planning authorities in rural areas (including those in the National Parks) to give careful consideration to the recommendations aimed at them.
The Government particularly welcomed the Commission's endorsement of the then proposed Planning Policy Statement 3 Housing (PPS3) and the Commission's recognition that, in order to help provide more affordable housing, housing provision of all types must increase in rural areas.
PPS3 and related national guidance
Planning Policy Statement 3: Housing (PPS3)
We published Planning Policy Statement 3 Housing on our website at http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/planningandbuilding/pps3housing in November 2006 as part of our response to Kate Barker's review of housing supply. PPS3 reflects the Government's commitment to improving the affordability and supply of housing in all communities, including rural areas, informed by the findings of the Affordable Rural Housing Commission. The delivery of housing in rural areas should reflect the key principles underpinning PPS3 - providing high quality housing that contributes to the creation and maintenance of sustainable rural communities.
PPS3 sets out the Government's strategic housing policy objectives. Its key housing policy goal is to ensure that everyone has the opportunity of living in a decent home, which they can afford, in a community where they want to live. To achieve this, the Government is seeking:
- To achieve a wide choice of high quality homes, both affordable and market housing, to address the requirements of the community.
- To widen opportunities for home ownership and ensure high quality housing for those who cannot afford market housing, in particular those who are vulnerable or in need.
- To improve affordability across the housing market, including by increasing the supply of housing.
- To create sustainable, inclusive, mixed communities in all areas, both urban and rural.
These housing policy objectives provide the context for planning for housing through development plans and planning decisions. The specific outcomes that the planning system should deliver are:
- High quality housing that is well-designed and built to a high standard.
- A mix of housing, both market and affordable, particularly in terms of tenure and price, to support a wide variety of households in all areas, both urban and rural.
- A sufficient quantity of housing taking into account need and demand and seeking to improve choice.
- Housing developments in suitable locations, which offer a good range of community facilities and with good access to jobs, key services and infrastructure.
- A flexible, responsive supply of land - managed in a way that makes efficient and effective use of land, including re-use of previously-developed land, where appropriate.
As part of this PPS3 encourages local planning authorities to create and maintain sustainable rural communities by:
- Providing a mix of housing, both market and affordable, particularly in terms of tenure and price, to support a wide variety of households in all areas;
Setting an overall target in their plan for the amount of affordable housing to be provided:- Setting out in their plan a minimum site size threshold above which affordable housing can be sought (the indicative national minimum threshold is 15);
- Allocating or releasing sites solely for affordable housing, where viable and practicable, including using the Rural Exception Site Policy, which enables small sites to be used specifically for affordable housing in small rural communities that would not normally be used for housing because, for example, they are subject to policies of restraint. Such sites should be used to provide affordable housing to meet local community needs in perpetuity.
Strategic Housing Market Assessments
Communities and Local Government have recently published practice guidance to help local authorities carry out housing market assessments (a key Commission recommendation). The guidance will enable local authorities to better understand housing markets so that they can plan to address both the need and demand for housing in their areas.
The findings of the assessment will inform decisions on the level of housing provision and its distribution in Regional Spatial Strategies and Local Development Frameworks, as well as policies on affordable housing and housing mix.
The Guidance sets a framework for assessing the need and demand for housing, which can be used in all housing market situations, including rural areas. Communities and Local Government and Defra are working closely together to see how they can further develop the approach to consider particular rural areas.
Along with the practice guidance, Communities and Local Government has also published an advice note setting out three possible ways that local authorities can identify sub-regional housing market areas. The expectation is that local authorities, working in partnership, will undertake strategic housing market assessments on the basis of sub-regional housing market areas.
We have issued practice guidance on Strategic Housing Market Assessments and Identifying sub-regional housing market areas.
Planning obligations
We have issued practice guidance on planning obligations at http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/planningandbuilding/circularplanningobligations to encourage local authorities to improve the development, negotiation and implementation of planning obligations.
Levels of delivery of affordable housing through planning obligations vary considerably across English local authorities, including rural ones, because of wide differences in policies and practices, and in land values. However, the Government does not intend developing a standard viability tool for section 106 negotiations, believing that it is for individual local authorities and developers to decide how to assess the reasonableness and proportionality of section 106 contributions in each case, taking account of individual circumstances.
Planning Gain Supplement
The Government at the 2007 Budget made further announcements on proposals for a planning-gain supplement (PGS). The announcements can be found at paragraphs 3.147 to 3.155 of the 2007 Budget Report, available at
The Government consultation on elements of the design of PGS as well as the proposed new approach to planning obligations, closed on 28th February 2007. The proposals would keep the provision of affordable housing within the scope of planning obligations. The Government is aiming to improve the system and is consulting on clarifying the statutory and policy basis for securing affordable housing contributions. The Government has also proposed to introduce a common starting point for the value of developer contributions to affordable housing to be used in negotiations; a research contract has recently been let to consider this further.
The 2007 Pre-Budget Report announced on 9 October that legislation implementing the Planning-gain supplement will not be introduced in the next Parliamentary session. Instead, the Government will legislate in the forthcoming Planning Reform Bill to empower local planning authorities in England to apply new planning charges to new development, alongside negotiated agreements for site-specific matters. The ministerial statement made by the Minister for Housing on 9 October at http://www.communities.gov.uk/statements/corporate/planningreform. This set out further details of the new planning charge (Hansard reference 9 Oct 2007: Column 25WS)
Sustainability appraisals
We have made the promotion of sustainable development a core objective of our planning policies. Further information on PPS1 is available at http://www.communities.gov.uk/planningandbuilding/planning/planningpolicyguidance/planningpolicystatements/planningpolicystatements/planningpolicystatementdeliverin/
We recognise concerns regarding sustainability and affordable rural housing. Sustainability Appraisal (SA) plays a central role in the delivery of sustainable communities. It extends Strategic Environmental Assessment (an EU requirement) to cover social and economic effects of revisions to Regional Spatial Strategies (RSS) and Local Development Documents (LDDs).
Existing SA guidance encourages a balanced assessment of social, environmental and economic issues. Criteria to be used in the appraisal process are developed by each Regional Planning Body or Local Planning Authority in SA scoping stages, throughout the assessment process and as part of monitoring the effects of implementing the plan (a requirement of the SA process and for all spatial plans).
Such Annual Monitoring for RSS revisions and LDDs must also report on the performance of plan policies, and also include Core Output indicators of relevance such as ‘affordable housing completions’.
We will as part of any guidance review:
- continue to encourage Regional Planning Bodies and Local Planning Authorities to consult with relevant bodies with an interest in affordable rural housing, including the Commission for Rural Communities, particularly at the SA scoping stage and in setting the SA framework.
- enhance the links between Annual Monitoring Reports and required SA monitoring, including the use of relevant Core Output Indicators.
National Housing and Planning Advice Unit
The National Housing and Planning Advice Unit (the NHPAU) was set up in early 2007. It will be providing advice on the provision of housing in both urban and rural areas, and the Chief Executive of the Unit recently met former members of the Affordable Rural Housing Commission to ensure his work was informed by their views. The Chair of the NHPAU Board has recently written to stakeholders setting out the Units work programme for 2007/08. Read more at: http://www.communities.gov.uk/housing/nhpau/
Local Area Agreements
There has been some difficulties in formulating an indicator that balances the need to measure outcomes with performance that local authorities and their partners are confident that they can sufficiently control. In particular, it has been difficult to find suitable definitions, set the position expected "without reward" on which to build the stretch and agreeing deliverable outcome over the period of the agreement.However, a new national indicator set includes a measure around the number of affordable houses delivered (Indicator 155). We are currently working on a reward model which will allow incentivisation on such measures if agreed for inclusion as an improvement target.
Code for Sustainable Homes
We have introduced a Code for Sustainable Homes which has replaced Ecohomes in England, and has removed locational factors, which were potentially difficult for rural schemes.
The Housing Corporation Rural Strategy
The Housing Corporation
- through its refreshed Rural Strategy at http://www.housingcorp.gov.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.10624 will ensure that appropriate standards of environmental sustainability for new housing is achieved in all areas. The Corporation will also encourage good design and the use of local materials to ensure that new housing association schemes are good neighbours in rural areas.
National Parks
We will be working with the National Park Authorities to build on the existing references to affordable rural housing in the current National Park Circular, 12/96. 
The updated circular needs to reflect, among other things, changes brought about by the Natural Environment and Rural Communities (NERC) Act which received Royal Assent on 30 March 2006. It is therefore likely that consultation on a new National Park circular will not take place until the end of 2008 at the earliest.
Page last
modified: 14 December 2007
Page published: 20 September 2006