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ARCHIVE: Affordable rural housing - Taylor report

In 2007, Matthew Taylor, MP for Truro and St Austell, was asked by the Prime Minister to review the rural economy, and the availability of affordable rural housing.  He consulted widely, visited all parts of England (and the Scottish Highlands) and his report was published in July 2008. His review covers a wide range of topics, and makes 48 recommendations.

The Government response, issued on 25 March 2009, is part of a series to contribute to the streamlining of the Planning System. It accepted 46 of the 48 recommendations.

Following the Government’s response to Matthew Taylor’s report “Living Working Countryside” - CLG have published an implementation plan on their website detailing progress in taking forward a number of recommendations relevant to its planning and housing responsibilities. This was updated in February 2010.

  • The Review recommends Masterplanning (link to page below) as a better way forward to expand market towns and villages than allowing piecemeal development round their edges. The Review offers some good examples, including Poundbury. This is an exciting recommendation and Defra together with CLG made £1M funding available to rural local authorities for specialist advice to achieve the sustainable expansion of their small or medium-sized settlements.
  • The Review recommends that landowners are incentivised to bring forward to provide land for rural exception sites.  The Government set up a practitioners’ Working Group which examined Matthew Taylor’s proposals for landowners to have nomination rights for affordable housing units or retaining an interest in their land.  The consultation document was published in November 2009 and 80 responses were received by the close of the consultation process on 18 February 2010.

Page last modified: 23 March 2010
Page published: 23 March 2010