Western Morning News on a new report:
Affordable Housing: A Fair Deal for Rural Communities
at
Click to access afairdealforruralcommunitiesmainreport3-1.pdf
highlights:
“…. Cornwall and Devon have among the highest levels of second home ownership in the country, with around 26,000 part-time properties in the region. …
…. The report also calls on the Government to reverse its new policy that means developments of fewer than ten homes are exempt from ensuring a proportion of the properties are sold or rented at affordable rates.
Lord Taylor said small sites are the “mainstay” of rural housing development.
He said: “In Cornwall and Devon this change, pushed through by the Conservative Planning Minister, will be devastating – leaving most small communities with no hope of affordable housing within local developments and local people unable to afford the vast prices inevitable on the open market in attractive villages.”
He said while new planning guidance had some rural exemptions the main effect will be to “increase site values to the benefit of wealthy landowners at the expense of local people unable to afford a local home”.
The report also calls on the “bedroom tax” to scrapped in rural areas, and for the Right to Buy council housing discount to be curbed because of fears the housing stock is being diminished.
Brandon Lewis, Housing Minister, said: “Trying to impose state bans on who can own property is totally inappropriate and simply will not stand up.”
East Devon Watch 
We must help young people to get onto the property ladder, they should not have to pay high rents to second home owner’s who are able to pay high prices in Devon and Cornwall for short term lets, mainly for holiday makers. The Government must have a fair policy in helping those local people to purchase well built properties within the area’s they live or work.
A Government who thought up the idea of the bedroom tax, could at least be more imaginative, with countryside people.
LikeLike