Housing Corporation News Release

Views sought on new approaches to affordable rural housing.

21 August 2007  Ref: 77/07

The Housing Corporation is carrying out a feasibility study on how best to support the delivery of new affordable homes in rural areas.  Views on this proposal are now being sought from a wide range of people and organisations. 

The final report of the Affordable Rural Housing Commission identified that existing best practice in the provision of affordable rural homes was not replicated across all rural areas. Barriers and blockages at the local level were preventing progress.

The study, commissioned on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, will look at the case for a new time limited revenue funding programme to help local organisations to overcome local barriers to making affordable housing happen. If the study shows that a new funding programme is needed, funding would be subject to the Comprehensive Spending Review, which will report later this year.

To participate, a questionnaire will be available in two formats:

• print, via post; and
• PDF, via email

from the Housing Corporation's enquiries team, from 9.30am on Wednesday 22 August for 12 weeks.

Email:
enquiries@housingcorp.gsx.gov.uk
Please ensure the subject field of your email reads 'Feasibility Study'.
 
Telephone:
0845 230 7000
 
Responses should be returned no later than Tuesday 13 November 2007.

Ends.

Notes to editors:
1. For further press information, please contact Naomi Evans on 020 7393 2118.

2. The study was announced at Commission for Rural Communities
“Affordable Rural Housing Commission – One Year On” Conference held in
June and will be funded by the Department for Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs (Defra).  Read more at: http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2007/070614a.htm

3. The Government’s on-going response to the final report of the Affordable Rural Housing Commission can be found on the joint Defra/Communities and Local Government Affordable Rural Housing website (see: http://www.defra.gov.uk/rural/arh/index.htm). The site is updated every three months.

4. Other work by the Housing Corporation on rural affordable housing includes the setting up of a Rural Housing Advisory Group, which will report annually to Communities and Local Government.  The group will explore genuinely innovative mechanisms to increase the supply of affordable homes in rural areas; schemes like Community Land Trusts, Land Swap Levies and community bonds, which could help deliver more affordable rural housing with more effective use of the public purse.

5. The Housing Corporation currently provides capital subsidy through its Affordable Housing Programme for the provision of around 3,000 rural homes per year.

6.  The Housing Corporation is the Government agency responsible for investing in new affordable homes and regulating over 1,500 housing associations across England. Its biggest ever investment programme of £3.9 billion for 2006-08 will fund 84,000 homes;  49,000 of these will be for affordable rent, and 35,000 will be for affordable sale through the Government's new HomeBuy initiative, helping people to get a foot on the property ladder.

7.  The Housing Corporation is working with English Partnerships and Communities and Local Government to establish the proposed new homes agency.