Planning for affordable rural housing in England and Wales

This paper explores some of the problems faced by planning-led rural housing initiatives since the issuing of government guidance in 1991 and 1992 (i.e. the 1991 Circulars and PPG3/PPG3 Wales). A range of difficulties have undermined confidence in the strategy and a key problem has been the lack of certainty resulting from poor development plan coverage in England and Wales. This uncertainty has fuelled debate surrounding the legitimacy of the strategy and its potentially negative impact on development control. However, in 1991, local planning authorities were given new legally-defined responsibilities for producing local plans and evidence from the DoE/WO monitoring surveys shows that plan coverage will have increased markedly by the end of 1996. Improved plan coverage and evidence that planning and housing departments are developing better working practices are encouraging signs. If greater certainty can be generated, the planning system may be able to make a more positive contribution to the supply of affordable rural housing.