Can rural England be saved?
Rural England is being threatened by a brutal combination of high house prices and low wages. According to The Taylor Review – Living Working Countryside – these twin threats are placing unsustainable pressure on rural economies, jeopardising their very existence. In response, the government must recalibrate its planning and affordable housing policy or risk seeing […]
Housing green paper combats ‘social injustice’
Housing minister Yvette Cooper today promised to deliver housing for the many and not just the few. Unveiling the government’s housing green paper, Ms Cooper said “without further action housing will become one of the greatest sources of social inequality in the next 20 years”. The government plans a three-pronged strategy for combating the housing […]
Young squeezed out of countryside
The countryside is fast becoming the preserve of the middle-aged and middle-class, a new report has found. Only the more affluent are able to benefit from the rural idyll, with costs of living higher in the countryside and poorer access to essential services such as GPs and Post Offices. The Commission for Rural Communities’ report, […]
MPs debate sustainable communities plans
MPs are today debating Conservative proposals to give councils far more power over how their local communities are run. The sustainable communities bill would allow local authorities to demand details of how Whitehall funds are spent in their area and, if necessary, demand this be changed to better reflect the neighbourhood’s needs. It would also […]
Barker urges major planning shake-up
Local authorities should consider allowing building projects on green belt land, a new government-commissioned report has said. Economist Kate Barker says the pressures of a growing population and more single households mean developers must be given more opportunities to build the 120,000 new homes a year that the government believes it needs. She notes that […]
Defra delays ‘cost farmers millions’
The delays in delivering the single farm payment scheme left English farmers with a bill of between £18 million and £22.5 million, a new report warns. The National Audit Office (NAO) today condemns the “unacceptable delay” in delivering European agricultural payments, caused by a catalogue of management errors. One fifth of farmers told the watchdog […]
Blair warns of limit to Post Office support
The government will do what it can to stop the decline of the UK’s post offices but “there is a limit” to the amount of financial support it can give, Tony Blair has said. A petition signed by four million people was delivered to Downing Street today by the National Federation of Sub-postmasters (NFSP), which […]
Post Offices ‘suffering from govt inaction’
The government must decide what it wants from the Post Office network if the UK’s 14,000 post offices are to survive much longer, a new report has warned. Industry regulator Postcomm claims post offices lost £111 million last year, despite the £150 million annual subsidy for rural branches, and says the situation looks bleak. A […]
Tories promise to save England’s gardens
The Conservatives have fired the first shots in the campaign for next year’s local elections by promising to protect England’s gardens from being concreted over. Shadow local government secretary Caroline Spelman said England’s homes and gardens would be the “battleground” of next May’s polls. The Tories have today published a five-point plan on how they […]
Government denies immigration causes housing shortage
The government has dismissed claims that the recent increase in immigration is the main cause of the current housing shortage. A new report from conservative think tank Migrationwatch says the government has seriously underestimated how many new migrants would arrive in Britain each year. As a result, it says ministers failed to make proper allowance […]
