The benefits of new housing in villages

So often new development in villages is considered negative and damaging to an area. Often constrained by planning policy, it can be very difficult for new homes to be delivered in rural areas, despite there often being a local need.

We see numerous benefits of new housing in villages;

+Gives older residents an opportunity to downsize without leaving the neighbourhood.

+Allows younger residents to stay in the area they grew up and extended families to live close to each other.

+More families help keep rural businesses and services sustainable, from village schools to pubs, local stores and post offices as well as bus services and broadband provision.

+Modern delivery services make rural living much more sustainable than they were only 10 years ago.

+Similarly, modern working practices mean that residents do not necessarily commute to work every day, having less impact on transport congestion and pollution.

There is also a strategic reason why villages should, in some circumstances, consider supporting proportionate local development. If a parish can prove they are meeting their own housing needs, they can potentially avoid speculative developers obtaining permission for larger scale housing developments by exploiting the “local housing need” argument. In opposing all new homes in a village, parishes can actually put themselves more at risk of having housing developments forced upon them by councils trying to meet their housing targets.

Please do contact us if you think this issue affects your village. Context welcomes the opportunity to work with Parish Councils in bringing their sites forward to meet local needs.