Skip to main content

Housing: Rural Areas

Volume 479: debated on Monday 21 July 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government if she will develop policies to ensure exclusive provision to the local population of housing supply in remote rural locations; and if she will make a statement. (219187)

The Government recognise that rural communities face particular pressures. National planning for housing policies in Planning Policy Statement 3 (PPS3) gives local authorities in rural areas the flexibility to determine the kind of new housing that should be built in their area. They should be proactive in identifying sufficient suitable sites that can be brought into development.

The rural exception site policy in PPS3 allows local authorities, where practical and economically viable, to grant permission for 100 per cent. affordable housing on small sites that would not normally be released for housing. This is an important means of providing affordable housing in perpetuity to meet needs of local rural communities.

In addition, in order to retain affordable housing for local communities in areas where replacement would be difficult, the right to acquire, under which housing association tenants may buy their rented home at a discount, does not apply in areas designated as rural, generally settlements of 3,000 or fewer inhabitants.

In general, section 106 can be used to impose a planning obligation restricting the use of land in any specified way or requiring land to be used in any specified way. An obligation created under section 106 is not only enforceable against the person entering into it but also against any person deriving title from them. Therefore, where restricting occupancy of affordable housing to the local population is material to the granting of planning permission for a residential development, a section 106 agreement provides a means of ensuring that this occurs.