Quality of Life (Hansard, 21 April 1989)

§ Mrs. Virginia Bottomley

Rural communities are benefiting along with urban communities from a wide range of policies introduced by the Department.

The farming and rural enterprise package launched in 1987 set out the Government's aims of protecting and enhancing the countryside while also enabling the development of a viable rural economy. These aims are achieved to a large extent through the activities of statutory bodies sponsored by the Department: the Countryside Commission, Nature Conservancy Council and Rural Development Commission.

In the planning field, the Department has given new guidance to encourage diversification of the rural economy, including advice on development involving agricultural land and the need for better standards of layout and landscaping for new housing in rural areas. The General Development Order that came into effect on 5 December 1988 extended specific planning control to proposed new livestock units and related structures such as slurry tanks within 400m of residential and other property.

A number of initiatives have also been taken to help increase the supply of low cost housing in rural areas for all sections of the community. These include: —enabling the Housing Corporation to establish a special rural programme with a target of 1,100 units a year by 1991–92; —increased funding for the National Agricultural Centre Rural Trust's work in providing start-up support for rural housing associations in smaller villages; —changes to the planning rules to enable local authorities exceptionally to release small pockets of land, not previously designated for housing, for low cost schemes to meet the needs of local people; —changes to the rules governing publicly-funded shared ownership which give housing associations a pre-emption right to repurchase the property at market price once the shared owner has moved on.