Homes for rural locals – if the price is right

23.07.2010  Commenting on the further announcement of a Coalition Government agreement to allow local communities to make planning decisions for affordable homes, local MP, Andrew George, said that the plan would only work if the development land released by the initiative was affordable.

Mr George – a member of the last Commons Communities and Local Government Select Committee – warned that affordable homes for locals could only be delivered if the planning system itself produced affordable homes. Other than land which may be gifted or entrusted to the local community, for a scheme which would genuinely produce affordable homes for local people in perpetuity, the land could only command a very small multiple of agricultural value, if that.

"With virtually no Government money available to subsidise housing schemes," said Mr George, "the subsidy would have to be delivered through the planning process. Land identified would be worth agricultural value and agricultural value only, therefore the landowner would not be asked to subsidise the scheme (unless they were prepared to gift the land) as in most cases they would receive significantly above the agricultural value (i.e. in some cases 4 or 5 times the agricultural value).

"As these decisions would be taken outside normal planning procedure, extra safeguards would have to be put in place to ensure that decisions were taken properly and that no undue pressure or influence were used to secure an outcome, either way.

"In many ways, a system already exists to allow developments in rural areas which are an 'exception' to normal planning policy. If this system can increase the availability of affordable homes for local people in perpetuity without significantly damaging the rural environment, then we should give this a cautious welcome and adopt the policy in Cornwall as soon as possible."