Rural homelessness is getting worse. What's the solution?

[DanteThunderstone]

Do we need to build social housing in rural areas, expanding villages and small towns? Do we need to ban or limit rural homes owned for holiday purposes? Would rising wages help most? Do we need to discourage people who've made their money in big cities heading to rural areas for a better quality of life if they're pricing out the locals? Can much be done? https://news.sky.com/story/i-spent-my-last-fiver-on-a-tent-why-rural-homelessness-is-getting-worse-in-england-12840886

I don’t know how you could actually do it, but yes, I’d like to see a restriction on buying homes for weekends only, or people moving from cities pushing up prices. Maybe something like crofting, or local employment? Can’t see it happening though.

I live in a very rural area. Very happy for rural towns and villages to be (sensitively) expanded and a lot of that is happening near us (4 separate new build developments currently ongoing in our nearest town).

I also think there should be more restriction on second homes that stand empty. I don’t mind holiday lets as long as they are occupied most the year, as they support the local economy. It’s not the local farmers here who are supporting the gift shops (they haven’t the time!), it’s the tourists and they all stay in holiday lets as there are few hotels. Our national park is actively seeking to increase overnight stays.

I am one of the people you speak of who had some career success in the city and moved to the country. I left home at 16 and worked my backside off, nothing was handed to me. No parental support at university, no nice middle class networks to help me get started. Why shouldn’t I move to the country if I want to? I’m British too. I’ve already had my rights to live in the rest of Europe taken away, may I now not live in rural UK either?

I also am @WhenisitmyturntobePM so no judgement from me. And you make a good point about the importance of tourism to local economies.

Around here (the Shires), it isn't particularly a tourist area.
Snapshot of my village and area: like a lot of villages, most of the council houses were sold off and not replaced. There's a rash of large new build houses which local people can't afford, and the people who have made their money in cities tend to buy those.

Well and good, but there are very few starter homes being built, because there's less profit. So village demographics will be altered and become wealthy enclaves if we are not careful. We need social housing to be replaced in rural areas.
I think there needs to be some kind of system that prioritises younger and starter families that are local to the area, as so many of the younger people from the village, both singletons and families, have had to move away to the town. They mostly try and return, but are being priced out.

The bungalows for older and disabled people are generally obtainable with a wait because of natural end of life. My friend, who lives in one, tells me that the HA that operates them cuts corners all the time on repairs and maintenance and hers is damp and has rats in the roof every year.

There are also a lot of hidden poor, mostly single people, who live unobtrusively in caravans and sheds, in fields and yards, gardens and corners and we have one young man sleeping in a local bus shelter, which he has modified with cardboard and plastic.

Rural areas need better public transport. If you’re poor here you’re REALLY poor and you can’t get anywhere to do anything about it.

I live in a rural village, agree with all the above, and especially transport.

we have a small cul de sac of starter homes only available to local families, so that’s good. We also have some new bungalows for older residents.

IME the three significant changes which would help are -

assisted moves for older people out of social housing and into said bungalow, we have a whole row of three/ four bed council houses and all but one has an old couple or single in. Makes me very cross.

needing planning permission for a holiday let (whole place, not a room or annexe).

double council tax or similar on second homes.

Omg this!

@Twoshoesnewshoes I’m no expert but my understanding is that planning permission is already required for a holiday let, as it’s a change of use from residential to business. I think second homes in some areas pay extra council tax too (certainly long term unoccupied properties do).

Definitely this. We have a bus that goes three times a week. It’s so isolating if you can’t drive or you’re a one car family with a partner at work.

We have family in the Peak District and have seen the problems there at close hand. I think that drastic action is much-needed and long overdue: a ban on any new sales for second homes, holiday homes, holiday lets and Airbnbs, triple the council tax for existing ones with the income to be spent on social and affordable homes, and a very low percentage cap on the numbers of non full-time residential homes in every village and town. In their small lane alone there are eight of them.

One of my clients bought a farm/barns to develop. The local council (Lake District) only gave planning permission for them to be developed into holiday lettings! Client wanted them to be homes, but had to agree to the planning conditions. After a few years, he only sold one, so kept going back to the council for change of use so he could sell them as homes. After about five years, the council reluctantly gave the change of use. Absolutely crazy that the Lake District whinge about lack of local affordable homes but then their council planning dept won't give permission for local affordable homes!

A lot aren't properly registered as holiday homes. In fact, one of the more stupid aspects of covid grants was that holiday home owners were allowed to "re-register" as businesses so that they qualified for the covid grants! There were no sanctions against them for failing to do the change of use years previously, wrongly using council domestic services such as bin collections, recycling collections, etc. As "businesses", they should have been paying for trade waste collection. It's about time that all holiday homes, Air BNBs etc were properly registered, paid business rates, and were subject to inspections, etc. Far too many "amateurs" are enjoying the benefits of the income without paying their business costs, including taxations, etc.

@Kazzyhoward I completely agree with you, although holiday lets that are properly registered as businesses don’t pay council tax and often don’t pay business rates either because they don’t meet the thresholds. They should certainly be properly registered though and the fact that they qualified for covid grants is scandalous.

Anyone with more than one holiday let won't qualify for business rates relief and many do have multiple homes, such as a several in a barn conversion, or even a typical house, properly divided with separate entrance doors, separate utility meters, etc.

One of my clients had "4" holiday homes, which was basically a detached house which had been converted into 4 separate units, two upstairs, two downstairs, all with their own separate entrances. He got a whopping £28k PER UNIT, so a total of £112k in covid grants from his local council, when he applied to back date his business rates application (something the council actively encouraged!). He paid a few thousand in business rates in return for £112k in grants!

What was worse is that he didn't "need" the grants anyway - he didn't lose income because he rented out all 4 units to keyworkers (it was close to a hospital) during the lockdowns and was allowed to rent to holiday makers in between when holidaying was allowed (because they were separate units with no communal areas). His profits for the two affected years were basically the same as the prior years when he rented them out during peak holiday season.

That's why the covid grants were so stupid. 3 million people excluded for no good reason, yet holiday let owners being allowed and encouraged to game the system when they didn't need to (with no checking as to whether they needed support or not!).

If we massively tax second home owners it would free up a HUGE amount of houses. So tell me why they won’t do that?

So village demographics will be altered and become wealthy enclaves if we are not careful. We need social housing to be replaced in rural areas.
As in a pp, we have family in the Peak District. Their village used to be a good mix of locals and incomers of different incomes and backgrounds, but increasingly has been taken over by the more affluent incomer and by second homes and holiday lets. Most of the council housing has been sold off and then sold on at prices out of reach for those wanting to buy on lower incomes. Other ex-council homes are now let out privately at three times what the rent was for council tenants. A much smaller amount of housing association stock has replaced it. More people need social housing because they have been priced out of buying or renting locally, but it is not there, so they become homeless and have to move away from their roots, families, friends, jobs and DCs' schools. Housing on the big country estates, previously available to estate workers and other locals, has increasingly been lost to holiday lets operated by the estates. It's not just one village but all the rural villages and towns in the National Park.

I think there needs to be some kind of system that prioritises younger and starter families that are local to the area,

Both my sons were born in SE London, neither can afford to buy a home, would you expect the same rules that could apply to rural areas to apply in urban ones as well?

Agree that public transport is the answer. People need to be able to get to and from villages easily if they are going to be places where people can live productive lives. I don't agree with limiting housing to people with local ties - I think the problem is often employment opportunities, rather than lack of housing per se. And I always think it's a bit of a "fuck you" to people who might want to move there from somewhere less nice

More housing is obviously needed, but with thought and care around facilities and amenities. If you build too much in rural areas, they stop being rural!

This is shocking and actually makes me feel a bit ill.

Because they're all landlords/multiple home owners?
The government don't actually seem to care about the general population any more. They're all about feathering their own and their mates nest. Whatever happened to public service.
They also can't see further than the next election. Where are the long term strategies for this sort of thing.
There's a quote that's something like 'We don't care about poor people because they don't vote for us' that horrifies me, but I think that's just saying the quiet part out loud. I don't think they even try to hide it any more.

Nothing will be done until people are happy to live in a society where the government intervenes in all areas to try and achieve the best for all.

That used to be called socialism, but decades of media indoctrination has taught us to despise it and make money out of watching the poor suffer in a triumphant vindication of the free market.

Isn’t ‘rural homlessness’ something that’s been happening for generations? There have always been people that can’t afford to live where they grew up in both urban and rural areas. Why is it worse when it happens in the countryside as opposed to the the big towns and cities?

I do think there needs to be more housing in rural areas, but there are enough people about now that we need to create new towns and villages. There’s only so much that current towns and villages can expand without becoming places that aren’t as nice to live in because the infrastructure can’t cope.

@bingoitsadingo

I think the problem is often employment opportunities, rather than lack of housing

Yep, since the centralisation of decent jobs into the bigger cities, lots of smaller towns and rural areas have been massively compromised in terms of decent local jobs for local people. My son was pretty horrified when he came to look for graduate jobs to find the vast majority located in London and a couple of other big cities. Absolutely nothing within commuting distance of even his Uni city, let alone our home town.

We used to have head offices for two national insurance companies near us which provided lots of high quality graduate jobs. Both have either moved to or been taken over by London firms and they don't even have a local branch office around here anymore. Same with a couple of national accountancy firms who had local offices in our small city - both closed them a few years ago, and now the nearest "branch" is over 100 miles away - too far to commute.

The youngsters in small towns and rural areas have no choice but to leave their home towns if they want decent jobs (other than teaching, NHS etc), as there aren't any larger employers outside the cities. That leaves a vacuum which is filled by second home owners as locals who want to work locally are stuck with low paid jobs, often in hospitality and retail, and can't afford local house prices.

Selling off the council houses and not replacing them was a crime, IMO. It got Thatcher a lot of votes but large proportion of those houses were sold on for huge profits and now there is almost no social housing.
What did they think was going to happen? This is what I mean by short-termism.

They thought people would sell them on for huge profits and there would be no social housing.

So pretty much one of the more successful government policies of the past 50 years then.

And it certainly wasn't short termism. It gave us 18 and now 13 years of a Tory government in 44 years. That's pretty long term. Even China is looking on saying "that's a bit bloody much".