03/03/2015
Headlines
3 March 2015
England Rural Development Programme: act now as grants start to open and application windows are tight Water capital grants of up to £10,000 are available for works to improve water management and quality. The application window is small and closes on 30 April 2015. We have produced a schedule of the opening windows of grants, which are subject to change.
Affordable housing review: a fair deal for rural communities This review, chaired by Lord Richard Best, has made 12 recommendations to help reduce the affordable housing crisis in rural areas (and rural areas do face special difficulties): More sites 1. Reverse the Government’s policy of not requiring affordable homes on sites of less than 10 homes 2. Introduce incentives to encourage land owners to develop rural affordable housing, through tax incentives and / or nomination rights 3. Require all local authorities to complete their Local Plan preparation within two years Affordability 4. Exclude rural areas from the “spare room subsidy withdrawal” (aka bedroom tax) because there are so few opportunities for rural tenants in houses to move to 1 or 2 bedroom flats in villages 5. Give rural local authorities the power to suspend the Right to Buy where affordable housing is scarce 6. A new national minimum target for delivery of rural housing 7. Allow the loan guarantee scheme to cover schemes of less than 25 homes to support small and medium sized builders and housing associations, as they are most active on small sites Maintaining affordability 8. Allow housing associations to charge affordable rents, based on local incomes, and not 80% of market rents, which is currently required for HCA funding 9. Reduce the impact of second home ownership in areas of housing shortages by allowing local authorities to require new housing (all or some) to be principal residences 10. Require the Council of Mortgage Lenders to produce a standardised mortgage form for rural affordable home ownership, as current forms do not support shared ownership Leadership 11. All housing policies should be properly rural proofed 12. The Government should support and fund neighbourhood planning and rural housing enablers Smiths Gore supports many, if not all, of the recommendations and was delighted to be asked to assist the Review and to provide a think piece on encouraging landowners to put forward sites for affordable houses.
Producing more with less impact: Christensen calls for UK farmers to rise to the challenge, in Edith Mary Gayton lecture, University of Reading Poul Christensen, past Chair of Natural England, was upbeat that farmers could produce enough food, at lower environmental cost, using new technologies, including plant breeding and precision farming. He said that farmers should set environmental as well as financial objectives and plans for their land. 100% agree!
Infrastructure Act This has now received Royal Assent and elements of it will shortly come into effect in England and Wales (and the community electricity right in Scotland): Part 1: The Highways Agency will become a government-owned ‘strategic highways company’. A late amendment was to require a national ‘cycling and walking investment strategy’, which will receive as much parliamentary scrutiny as roads strategy and other large infrastructure projects such as HS2. Part 3: animal and plant health bodies are given new powers to compel landowners to act, powers of entry for surveillance and to carry out work themselves in respect of invasive non-native species. There are also new criminal offences and new powers of entry. The new powers are largely based on the Law Commission’s consultation on its wildlife law review in 2012. Part 4: covers planning (nationally significant infrastructure projects, discharge of planning conditions), land and buildings (Homes and Communities Agency, Land Registry).
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