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Part 1. Effects of affordable Housing, Chapter 3
Sustainability of housing stock
The table below shows the housing statistics for the case study settlements and uses data from individual village reports.
Case study village Total housing stock Ratio of social landlord stock: non-permanent residence % of stock owned by a social landlord % of stock non permanent residence (1991 Census) % of total social landlord stock lost through RTB Local income/house price ratio Average local house price Ratio of social landlord stock: non permanent residence if no previous RTB
near Penrith 135 2:1 7.0% 3.0% 36% 8.5 £112,754 3:1
Braithwaite,
Keswick 665 1:8 4.0% 32.0% 48% 9.5 £173,947 1:3
Castle Carrock,
near Carlisle 120 4:1 3.5% 0.8% 33% 11 £189,875 7:1
Chapel Stile,
Langdale 141 1:2 19.0% 37.0% 12% 7 £127,450 1:2
Cliburn,
near Penrith 81 1:1 11.0% 9.0% 30% 7 £87,169 1:2
Coniston 541 1:3 11.0% 30.0% 45% 8.5 £151,401 1:2
Glenridding,
Ullswater 321 1:7 7.0% 48.0% 60% 15 £193,657 1:3
Gosforth,
near Whitehaven 522 1:1 3.0% 4.0% 17% 3.5 £84,931 1:1
Hawkshead 308 1:5 5.0% 25.0% 38% 11 £199,310 1:3
Lorton,
near Cockermouth 132 1:10 3.5% 30.0% 37.5% 5.5 £95,370 1:6
Rosthwaite,
near Keswick 183 1:17 3.0% 50.0% 60% 8 £149,145 1:6
Shap,
near Penrith 577 4:1 12.0% 3.0% 55% 9 £122,188 9:1
Analysis of the sustainability of the housing stock in each village
Accessible and affordable housing in rural communities is an essential sustainability factor in enabling young emerging households to remain in their community, and in encouraging new households to set up home and settle within a village. Both things contribute to a sense of community.
In all the communities we studied, the new supply of social landlord stock for rent or shared ownership has had a positive effect on the sustainability of the rural communities. Affordable housing has enabled households to maintain family, social and economic links and contributed to the sustainability of local services as children go to local schools and parents shop in the local store. The developments have been a great success, management problems are negligible, re-lets are few and the developments are settled. At the time of this study, a few years into the life of the developments, their role has grown: from initially easing the pressure of households in need to enabling them to remain part of and contribute to future village life.
The following is an appraisal of the housing stock in each of the settlements we studied, and our conclusions as to the issues arising in the communities in relation to housing stock.
We make the following recommendations to ensure the sustainability of this housing stock:
The ratio of social housing to second homes is critical and should be ideally 1:1, with both being no more than 25% of the market and no more than 1:10.
Loss of rented housing through Right to Buy or Right to Acquire is critical. Ideally it should not be more than 10% of social landlord stock.
The social housing percentage should be at least 5% of stock, where demand is evident.
The percentage of second homes should not be more than 20% or more as this appears to affect the sustainability of any village.
The ratio of average earnings to average prices is a critical factor and may explain some population migrations to less expensive settlements (hence the loss of children from schools). So local people should be offered a choice of accessible and affordable tenures rather than having no alternative than to rent.
Bolton, near Penrith
A small settlement.
A positive ratio between social housing and second homes.
The only housing option for new households on average income is social renting, due to the 8.5 times average salary cost of the average home.
The loss of some properties through Right to Buy – 36% of social landlord stock – has affected the village, but the main effect on the balance of the community is the high number of executive homes being developed.
Braithwaite, near Keswick
A large settlement very close to the market town of Keswick.
A high adverse ratio between social housing and second homes (1:8), worsened to 1:3 by the sale of properties through Right to Buy – 48% of social landlord stock.
A very high percentage of properties are second homes: 32%.
Without the recent social development at Ashcroft Close, the ratio of social housing to second homes would equate to 1:21, with only 1.5% of housing stock being social housing.
Castle Carrock, near Carlisle
The only housing option for new households on average income is social renting due to the 11 times average salary cost of the average home.
As the social housing development at Meadow View is for an over-55 age group, families have limited opportunity to access social rented housing in the village.
No other opportunities for social landlord provision are available in the village, with a loss through Right to Buy of 33% of social landlord stock.
The main issues in Castle Carrock appears to be the influx of commuters to the village; such demand has driven up house prices.
Chapel Stile, Langdale
An adverse ratio between social rented properties and second homes of 1:2.
Due to the large percentage of stock in the social housing sector (19%) there is opportunity for new households to access such housing. However, as 37% of the stock are second homes there is still an imbalance in the housing profile of the community.
The loss of social landlord stock through Right to Buy is only 12%, due to the building of a new development.
The only housing option for new households on average income is social rent due to the 7 times salary cost of the average home.
Cliburn, near Penrith
The smallest of the case-study settlements.
A balanced ratio of social housing and second homes, of 1:1.
The proportion of social rented housing in the village is relatively high at 11%.
Loss of social landlord stock through Right to Buy is 30%.
To buy the average house people would need 7 times the local salary. The only option for many new households is social rented housing, despite the low average house price of under £90,000.
A large settlement of a similar size to Braithwaite.
An adverse ratio between social housing and second homes (1:3), worsened slightly by the sale of properties through Right to Buy (1:2, ie 45% of total social landlord stock).
A very high percentage of properties – 30% – are second homes.
The only housing option for new households on average income is social rent, due to the 8.5 times salary cost of the average home.
Glenridding
A medium-sized settlement.
An excessive adverse ratio between social housing and second homes: 1:7. The situation is made worse by the sale of homes under Right to Buy (1:3, 60% of social landlord stock).
At 48%, a very high percentage of second homes, the second largest.
The second-highest average house price in our survey group, at £193,657, and a massive 15 times salary to house price ratio, gives little option for local residents wishing to remain in the village.
If Browfield Close had not been developed the ratio of social housing to second homes would equate to 1:13, with only 3.8% of housing stock being social housing.
Gosforth, near Whitehaven
A large settlement with what appears to be a balanced housing provision.
A balanced ratio between social housing and second homes, with no negative effects of the Right to Buy process due to only 17% loss of social landlord stock.
The income to average price ratio of 3.5 times offers a choice of tenure to new households.
Average wages are higher than in the other case-study settlements due to Gosforth's proximity to BNFL's operations at Sellafield.
Social to second home ratios and percentages are similar to other Lake District villages, at 1:5, and 25% respectively.
The multiple of 11 times the average salary to buy the average home is alarmingly high, and highlights the issues of low wages and very high average house values, the highest of the case-study settlements at £200,000.
Lorton, near Cockermouth
A small settlement with many second homes.
30% of all homes are second homes and only 3.5% are social rented housing; the ratio of 1:10 is the second highest of the case-study villages.
Without the development at Vale Cottages, the ratio of social housing to second homes would be 0:40, as 2% of the stock has been lost through Right to Buy.
The loss of social landlord stock from the Right to Buy is 37.5%.
The average salary to house price ratio is 5.5, reflecting the number of professional people who live in the village.
Rosthwaite, near Keswick
One of the smaller case-study villages with the highest second home percentage.
At 1:17, the ratio of social housing to second homes is the worst extreme in these case studies.
The village has been affected massively by the sale of properties through Right to Buy, (1:6, 60% of social landlord stock).
Without the development at Kiln Orchard the second homes issue would have been even more extreme, at a staggering 1:92 ratio of social housing to second homes.
An average multiple of 8 times average income to average property price reflects both the low incomes and high house prices in the area, and leaves only social rented housing for newly forming households.
Shap, near Penrith
A large settlement.
Like Gosforth, Shap has no apparent housing problems.
Loss of social landlord stock through Right to Buy: 55%.
The only housing option for new households on average income is social rent, due to the 9 times salary cost of the average home.
The effect of the 4:1 positive ratio of social housing to second homes will require monitoring.
Conclusions and recommendations for action
Housing, Economy, Environment, Community and Services (HEECS)
Conclusions Recommendations for action
• The ratio of social housing to second homes is critical and should ideally be 1:1, with both being no more than 25% of the market and no more than 1:10.
• When second homes form 20% or more of the market, this appears to affect the sustainability of any village.
• This ratio needs to be closely monitored as an adverse ratio can affect the economic viability and the community sustainability of rural villages.
• Regular monitoring systems can be introduced via Vital Villages parish plans or by parish housing need appraisals (see Part III
Toolkit for Parish Housing Need Surveys) and undertaken by parish councils or other locally representative bodies.
• Rural housing enablers (RHEs) need to identify in their work programme communities where adverse ratios call for the relevant local authority to undertake a housing need survey as part of core funding.
• Councils should be able to charge full council tax on second homes where there are adverse ratios and should use the money raised to invest in further affordable housing for the benefit of that specific rural community.
• Losses through Right to Buy and Right to Acquire are critical and should ideally be no more that 10% of social landlord stock.
• Where Right to Buy loss has exceeded 10% of social landlord stock, Right to Buy and Right to Acquire might be suspended for five years to enable the social landlord to make new provision or to buy back such properties when they come onto the housing market.
• The Housing Corporation's total cost indicators need to increase in flexibility to allow housing associations to buy existing satisfactory properties within communities where high housing demand has exaggerated the market value of ex-Right to Buy properties.
• The social housing percentage should be at least 5% of stock, where demand is evident.
• Our evidence shows that affordable housing development via social landlords helps to sustain rural communities, because it enables households depending on local incomes to live where they have a local connection.
• The rules governing how much Housing Corporation money can be spent on affordable housing projects need to be adjusted to reflect the real, high cost of land acquisition, and high design standards for developing in high-demand rural communities.
• To increase the supply where percentages of social housing are lower than 5%, there should be greater flexibility, with the help of local knowledge, to enable more grant funding to be spent on the higher unit costs of small developments with higher capital values in rural locations.
• The ratio of earnings to average house prices is a critical factor and may explain some population migrations to less expensive settlements (hence the loss of children from schools). Local people need a choice of accessible and affordable tenures rather than the Hobson's choice of renting.
• This ratio needs to be closely monitored, as an adverse ratio can affect the economic viability and the community sustainability of rural villages.
• Regular monitoring systems can be introduced via Vital Villages parish plans or by parish housing need appraisals (Part III Rural Housing Needs Toolkit) and undertaken by parish councils or other locally representative bodies.
• RHEs need to identify in their work programme communities where adverse ratios call for the relevant local authority to undertake a housing need survey as part of core funding.
• There should be greater flexibility, with the help of local knowledge, to enable more grant funding to be spent on the higher unit costs of small developments with higher capital values in rural locations.
• Communities on housing association schemes welcomed local occupancy clauses as they ensured that properties were built for people who need to live and work locally.
• Misconceptions persist about the eligibility and allocation of housing association stock.
• Where required for planning permission, local occupancy clauses should be imposed on developments. However, to ensure the schemes can be viably let by the landlord, the remit should not be too restrictive.
• Parish councils should work with housing associations in communities to ensure that, where housing need exists, information is easily available about the allocation process for housing association properties.
• Housing associations should market their product in a more upbeat manner to ensure they are not simply seen as another private landlord.
• Studies of this nature about housing association development should be undertaken every five to ten years to provide detailed information on the success of social landlord development in rural communities. If undertaken for negative reasons, to investigate problems, their purpose should be to ensure that mistakes would not be repeated.
• The Countryside Agency and Housing Corporations Rural Housing Enabling Programme is ideally placed to do this work.
• Housing need surveys provided a vital evidence base for detailed planning consent. In all developments they also enabled the successful allocation of schemes to residents in compliance with Section 106 and where appropriate in subsequent lettings.
• Subsequent housing need surveys conducted by communities where development had taken place still identified housing need.
• It is important to ensure that the community was closely involved and represented on social landlord development.
• Organisations working in rural areas should not become complacent by assuming that once a development was started, this would be enough for that community for a long time.
• RHEs should evaluate housing need surveys where high levels of need had been identified to find out what the authorities need to do.
• RHEs should work jointly with the communities, local authorities and housing associations to identify communities with housing need and potential for development.
• Housing associations in areas of high demand with high numbers of eligible households on the register for re-housing had temporarily suspended the register for new applications.
• In reality the turnover of stock was so low that households currently registered were unlikely to be rehoused in the foreseeable future.
• Schemes were very settled developments had approximately one re-let a year on average; this low turnover gave little opportunity for new lettings.
• To ensure housing registers can remain an accurate reflection of housing need in a parish, housing associations should only suspend them with consent from the local authority and parish council and by following clear guidelines on the reasons for the suspension.
• Applicants should be encouraged to register with the local authority with some guarantee that their details would be forwarded to the housing association when the register was operating.
• Parish councils should work with housing associations in communities to ensure that, where housing need exists, information about allocating housing association properties is easily available.
• There was little diversity in the size and tenure of move-on accommodation; ,once allocated a tenancy, households would be likely to remain in it for the long term.
• The current targets for provision in rural areas are not enough to meet identified need.
• With available land so scarce, developments need to recognise that tenants will be long-term residents, so allocation policies and the accommodation provided should take into account the tenants' likely long-term and life changes, from single household to young couple to small family.
• The Equity Share model should be tested in high-value, high-demand areas to offer another form of tenure.
• There were concerns about the loss from the communities of young skilled labour, which was integral in sustaining the economy and the community.
• Accessible affordable housing was seen as essential in sustaining the rural economy. Each family that left its community did so for several reasons, but the main one was the lack of affordable housing available.
• The ratio of earnings to average prices is a critical factor and may explain some population migrations to less expensive settlements (hence the loss of children from schools). Local people need a choice of accessible and affordable tenures rather than being restricted to social rented.
• The definition of key workers should be extended to cover all those with a distinctive role in rural communities. It might include rural shopkeepers, agricultural workers, skilled building contractors, coalmen delivering fuel and Calor gas, and part-time firefighters, as well as teachers, police officers, nurses etc.
• In addition to an adequate supply of affordable housing stock in rural communities, housing associations should recognise the importance of tenure diversity - from renting to owner occupation.
• Local income data and affordability thresholds should be incorporated into plans for any new development. Planners should have to show they were aware of what local salary earners can afford and ultimately the type of accommodation that would be feasible.
• It is uncertain whether reliance on a main employer would sustain the community in the long term, for example when tourism has become predominant.
• Market towns have an essential role as centres of employment for the rural hinterlands. Housing and planning policies should encourage the regeneration and development of market towns.
• Regional housing, economic and planning strategies should address the housing needs of market towns and their hinterlands.
• The economic base of rural communities should be diversified.
• Negative comments received about developments studied in the research related to the rents charged for the properties in relation to local salary levels. However, residents appreciated they were far below rents for private rented accommodation and prices on the open market. • The effects of rent restructuring in rural areas should be truly recognised. Housing associations should supply relevant government bodies with data about local rent increases and income levels.
• Residents felt social landlord schemes were well designed and far more sympathetic to the surrounding than much of the privately owned stock.
• Environmentally, social landlord schemes were seen to be in keeping with their surroundings.
• The rules governing how much Housing Corporation money can be spent on affordable housing projects need to be adjusted to reflect the high, real cost of land acquisition, planning delays and high design standards for developing within high demand rural communities.
• The Lake District National Park and local authority planning developments have an essential role in ensuring schemes are built to an environmentally acceptable specification.
• Sustainable building programmes must be encouraged in rural areas, for example solar-powered panels, timber frames construction, and high standards of insulation. Grant funding sources should recognise the higher costs per unit due to location.
• Once the schemes were completed, many of the objections raised at the planning stage were satisfied.
• Objections raised included: difficult access, increase in traffic, parking difficulties, loss of visual amenity, materials to be used, urban-style design that was intrusive to the landscape, loss of land better used for agricultural purposes, misconceptions around the possibility that in future houses would not be used to meet local needs, layout, noise, disposal of sewage, proximity to adjacent owner and concerns over effects on property value, detrimental effects on the tourism industry, setting a precedent for future such developments, insufficient evidence of housing need, difficulty finding tenants for existing housing association developments, misconceptions about the letting policy of housing associations, protection of trees, effect on the visual landscape.
• Housing associations should market the product they provide in a more upbeat manner to ensure they are not simply seen as another private landlord.
• Studies of this nature should be undertaken on housing associations developments every five to ten years to provide detailed information on the success of social landlord development and attempt to provide evidence to combat misconceptions about it.
• Eight of the 12 developments were enabled as an exception to planning policy.
• Development restrictions imposed by the National Park on new development was not seen as serving the best interests of the community.
• The current exceptions policy will never result in development sites in ideal locations that avoid public opposition and nimbyism.
• Within the local pan, Sites for Social Diversity need to be identified in high-need, high-demand locations to illustrate at a strategic level that this is what the community needs and this is what the land will be used for.
• Where such schemes have a positive effect on rural community sustainability, with a clear need for additional provision, then Sites for Social Diversity should be incorporated within the parish plan as part of the Vital Villages and should be recognised by the local plan.
• Social landlord development was judged to be important for community stability.
• Where development by a social landlord had taken place it was agreed that more was needed to stop the drain of young people away from the villages.
• Social landlord development was seen as essential in maintaining family and economic links within rural communities.
• With the help of local knowledge, and if a dear need for housing can be proved, there should be flexibility to allow more grant funding from the Housing Corporation to be spent on the higher unit costs of small developments with higher capital values in rural locations.
• Where required for planning permission, local occupancy clauses should be imposed on developments. However, to ensure the homes can be viably let by the landlord, the remit should not be too restrictive.
• Parish councils should work with housing associations in communities to ensure that, where housing need exists, information about the allocation of housing association properties is easily available.
• Communities considered that the high numbers of people retiring to rural areas, and the increase in second home ownership was altering the population and age profile of the community, reducing the numbers of families and the general population of the settlement as a whole. Concern was raised about the lack of control over the numbers of second homes in attractive locations in and around the National Park.
• Splits were emerging in communities between new residents who did not wish to see any further development due to noise and intrusion on the landscape and residents who wished to see more development to re-establish the community that was disappearing.
• The ratio of social landlord accommodation to second homes needs to be closely monitored, as adverse ratios can affect the economic viability and the community sustainability of rural villages.
• Parish councils or other locally represented bodies can introduce regular monitoring systems through Vital Villages parish plans or by parish housing need appraisals (see Part III Rural Housing Needs Toolkit).
• So that a significant number of units can be provided on existing sites, developers and housing associations must work jointly to ensure mixed developments, thus enabling all income levels to benefit. They should consider mixed tenure sites, enabling shared ownership, equity share and rented accommodation.
• Local planning authorities should insist on housing association involvement on all brownfield sites in rural areas as part of the planning requirements, and should insist on Section 106 agreement about local occupancy.
• Service providers, schools, local shops and local employers saw housing association developments as essential to allow young people and young families to remain in the locality and contribute to the community and economy. • In their planning and housing strategies, local authorities should recognise the benefit of affordable housing for the viability of local service providers.
• Two basic service emerge as essential to the survival of the rural communities: the post office with basic grocery store and the school.
• If these services are fairly stable, then other services tend to be sustainable, such as the pub, village hall and other community-based activities.
• If one of these services disappeared, it tended to have a negative effect on the others.
• An emerging theme was the importance of valley communities. Where one settlement may have only one service, access to and use of neighbouring community services was an essential element of village life.
• More community events tended to be organised in larger communities and valley communities where more services were available.
• Local Plans need to set out to halt the decline in rural services.
• In communities where services are under threat of closure - for example to close schools where the number of children has dropped - other ways should be considered to keep the service viable. The housing stock ratios should be analysed (under housing recommendations for action) to ascertain the need for development and the type of stock that is missing.
• Governing authorities need to be prepared to spend more money in rural locations than economies of scale would normally permit, and should be aware of other benefits associated with the community's survival.
• Public transport was seldom viewed as reliable in village life because services were infrequent and expensive and were mainly seen as catering better for visitors than local residents
• Public services need to provide access to main centres of employment (market town) for normal working hours.
• The requirements of rural communities should be incorporated in transport policies in Cumbria.
Go to: Index, Chapter 1, 2, (3)
Aim of the research
The aim of this research was to:
produce a document which reviews the provision of affordable housing in rural areas of Cumbria;
investigate the real and direct benefits of such provision on the sustainability of rural communities.
It offered an opportunity to look back at the practical result of the work of housing associations in Cumbria and identify the real differences that have been made in areas of high demand. Once a scheme has been built and let, it tends to be accepted, maintaining family, social and economic links within the community.
Many of the schemes we studied took a long while to develop from inception to completion, and involved dedicated hard work by individuals who saw a shortfall in the housing available in the community for residents who live and work locally, and a need for social landlord development to sustain the more popular rural villages in Cumbria both socially and economically.
Comments received from Cumbria Rural Housing Trust housing need surveys about RSL provision
Positive comments
'We need more affordable housing within our community to stop the drain of young people out of the village.'
'Without such developments there would be no housing available for local people.'
'This community has changed so much over the years that any development to enable young people to live here would be an improvement.'
'Only if they're for local people and they can afford them.'
'There is no housing need in this village.'
'The houses will spoil the appearance of the village.'
'We don't want any future development within our community;
it will spoil the area.'
'Social housing is for drug addicts and alcoholics.'
'You have to be affluent to live here, i.e. access to two cars.'
Cumbria is a very diverse county in terms of landscape and housing availability. Its physical geography is dominated by the Lake District National Park and the Yorkshire Dales National Park. For providers and enablers of affordable housing, namely local authorities, planning authorities and housing associations, there are a range of issues in the National Parks around securing enough affordable housing to ensure the area's social and economic sustainability.
Issues facing providers and enablers of affordable housing within high-value, high-demand areas.
Provision of affordable housing does not meet demand.
Public stock in high-value rural areas has declined dramatically because of the Right to Buy.
The resale value of ex-Right to Buy and shared ownership properties is above the income thresholds of low and average income earners.
The demand for housing on the open market has been exacerbated in recent years by the influx of people from outside the area purchasing properties for use as a second or holiday home, buying properties to let or retiring to the area.
As a result, house prices on the open market are beyond the reach of local income earners.
The only realistically affordable and secure tenure in many rural areas is provision by an RSL.
There is some flexibility in the Housing Corporation's current total cost indicators and grant rates regime to enable housing associations to provide accommodation in high-value areas, but currently this flexibility is not enough to enable the development or purchase and repair of existing properties on the open market.
Private renting is expensive, and overshadowed by the likelihood of winter lets becoming holiday accommodation in the summer months.
Households in need of secure affordable accommodation are not registering for rehousing with social landlords due to long waiting lists and disillusionment that they will ever be allocated accommodation.
Social landlord schemes in high-value, high-need areas are often developed as exceptions to planning policy and not as an instrument of planning policy.
As a result, sites identified will never be in ideal locations and are likely to attract strong opposition to development.
High building costs accompany the development of properties in high-value areas such as National Parks. These costs are largely due to the materials used and restrictions imposed on scheme requirements for a high standard of design.
Strong opposition and Section 106 negotiations cause delays in planning.
Housing: An Effective Way to Sustain Our Rural Communities
Part I: A study into the effects of provision of affordable housing in rural communities
The research examines the success or failure of affordable housing provision since 1990 in twelve rural communities in Cumbria. The research was undertaken by two students completing a Masters in Research and Consultancy at Lancaster University School of Independent Studies and project managed by Cumbria Rural Housing Trust.
Their remit was to approach the project with an unbiased view, with no previous housing and planning policy knowledge. They were to determine the success of the scheme in terms of a housing development and its direct effect on the rural community, from usage of local services such as the shop and school to the maintenance of family and economic links. In some communities they had more success than others and were able to get a real feeling from the community about the effect of the development.
The research has been funded by the Housing Corporation Innovation and Good Practice Grant and the Rural Development Programme.
Who should read it?
Anyone with an interest in social housing development and the sustainability of rural communities: either directly linked to their community or as part of an organisation's strategic plan to ensure the provision of affordable housing to meet the rural community's needs.
Part II: Planning to deliver fundamental change in rural Cumbria
Investigation into how the Planning Green Paper, Planning: delivering a fundamental change, published in December 2001, will affect the delivery of affordable housing in rural Cumbria and how the changes envisaged in the Paper will hinder or improve the delivery process.
The research has been funded by a Housing Corporation Innovation and Good Practice Grant and the Rural Development Programme.
Anyone who wishes to gain an understanding of the current planning system and how the proposed changes will make the system work better. Anyone who wishes to gain an understanding of local governance, e.g. community strategies, Local Strategic Partnerships and the Rural White Paper.
Part III: Rural housing needs toolkit
A toolkit for communities to evaluate their local housing market. The affordability of homes, changes in the community and assess the future housing requirements of the community.
The toolkit is funded solely by a Housing Corporation Innovation and Good Practice Grant.
Part I - Method
Based on five parameters, we chose twelve rural communities across Cumbria where affordable housing has been established within the past ten years. Table I at the end of this chapter details the breakdown of parameters for each community and Table II gives details about the schemes developed; landlord, tenure and property mix.
The five parameters:
Rural/Deep rural
in terms of isolation from other settlements and accessibility via road links.
High-demand area/Low-demand area
in terms of the housing market.
Economic prosperity/Economic inactivity
in terms of the economic base and diversity of the area.
Service centre/Few services
in terms of services available, grocery store, post office, public transport.
Transport links / Few transport links
in terms of public road and rail transport and the accessibility of the settlement.
In choosing the communities, we decided it was important to get a mix of locations where different housing markets applied. Many communities fell into several categories:
Commuter Rural
Bolton, Cliburn, Castle Carrock, Lorton and Shap>
Tourism Rural
Braithwaite, Chapel Stile, Coniston, Glenridding, Hawkshead, Lorton, Rosthwaite
Industrial Rural
Gosforth, Shap, Coniston
Our initial discussions showed that it was important to establish as a measure or base line an understanding of what makes a 'good community' and what 'sustainability' meant in the context of this piece of research.
The Government has recently announced a strong commitment to sustainable development in Sustainable Communities; building for the future (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister), which comments:
'The way our communities develop, economically, socially and environmentally, must respect the needs of future generations as well as succeeding now. This is the key to lasting, rather than temporary solutions; to creating communities that can stand on their own two feet and adapt with the changing demands of modern life. Places where people want to live and will continue to want to live'.
We would add to that 'can live' in terms of accessible housing market and evolving economy. These newly emerging households, currently unable to secure permanent affordable housing of an acceptable standard, are integral to any sustainable community, as they are its future. Repeatedly these households are identified by Cumbria Rural Housing Trust's housing need surveys as inadequately housed. Without social landlord provision they will be forced to leave the areas of their choice to find more affordable housing outside the high-value areas, resulting in a loss of skills and sense of community to villages.
A sustainable community is well balanced in social, economic and environmental factors and is able to continually evolve socially and economically.
By social factors we mean the level of community spirit, and connections with family and friends. For example we might suggest that for a community to be sustainable there needs to be a well-balanced mix of young and old, incomers and locals.
By economic factors we mean local employment, affordability of house prices and local services.
By environmental factors we mean location and surrounding amenities, and how far the development is in keeping with the surrounding environment.
The study was split into three very different and distinct stages.
In conjunction with Lancaster University's School of Independent Studies, two students were appointed to work with the Trust as part of their professional project research while undertaking an MA in Research and Consultancy at Lancaster University. The students had no prior knowledge of rural communities, issues around housing, the economy and planning in Cumbria, or the development process for affordable housing in rural communities.
This meant their research would not be biased towards individual communities, local authorities or housing associations in regard to whether or not a community would be sustainable. Training was provided to improve their background knowledge. They had a limited time and number of visits within each community, which understandably affected the depth of the research.
Three days of training were arranged to introduce the students to social housing. This training explored issues around housing provision and development in Cumbria to explain why the research was necessary. The training also covered what makes a community; issues of sustainability; how to measure sustainability; research techniques; how to encourage community involvement; key agencies; designing questionnaires; and health and safety awareness when working in communities.
A quantitative analysis looked at existing housing stock; average market prices; average rents; second and holiday homes; employment opportunities in the area; average wages etc.
We also approached landlords and tenants of each scheme to ascertain the viability of each scheme from their point of view. We considered the following factors:
Landlord:
property turnover
rents charged
council tax levels
type of accommodation and move-on accommodation available locally
management problems such as neighbour nuisance
Tenant:
ability to maintain social and economic links
membership of local groups
affordability of rent and council tax
cost of goods and service locally
The qualitative analysis was then a process of testing the perceptions of each community and services against the data available. We used census information, mainly the 1991 census (2001 was not available at the time) with 1997 Local Profiles from Cumbria County Council, OFSTED reports, and planning applications available from local planning authorities.
The final stage was a process of consultation within each community and with each authority and landlord who had taken part or provided information for the research. We did this firstly by holding a forum in January 2003 in which we presented all the information gathered. The morning session focused on the results of studies in the communities, the afternoon on the analysis of current and future planning legislation that forms Part II of this study. The forum provided a valuable opportunity to gain feedback from the conclusions and fill in gaps. Delegates included parish council members, interested village residents, and representatives from the local authority, housing associations, the Housing Corporation and the Countryside Agency.
Following the forum, the village reports were completed and sent to each parish council for their comments, which are included in the conclusions for each of the villages.
Table I - Breakdown of parameters used to select settlements for research
Inactivity
Mitre HA
● ● ● ● ●
Castle Currock,
Coniston,
Home HA
Hawkeshead,
Two Castles HA
Table II - Development details
Type of properties
near Penrith
Stephensons Croft,
Mitre Housing Association Eden District Council 3 in 1988
3 in 1994 For rent, two bedroom bungalow for older persons
Ashcroft Close,
Mitre Housing Association Allerdale Borough Council 6 in 1998 For rent, 1 two-bedroom house and 5 three bedroom houses
Castle Currock
Meadow View,
Anchor Housing Association Carlisle City Council 4 in 1991 For rent, 4 one bedroom bungalows
Chapel Stile
How Bank View,
Mitre Housing Association South Lakeland District Council 7 in 2001 For rent, 2 two bedroom bungalows
Cliburn
Cuthberts Close,
Mitre Housing Association Eden District Council 6 in 1992 For rent, 4 three bedroom houses and
5 three bedroom houses
Barratts Croft,
Home Housing Association South Lakeland District Council 14 in 1997 For rent, 4 two bedroom flats and 1 three bedroom house.
Shared Ownership: 9 two and three bedroom houses
Browfield Close,
Housing Association Eden District Council 10 in 1995 For rent, 2 two bedroom houses; 4 three bedroom houses and
4 two bedroom bungalows
Hallbeck Place, Gosforth,
Home Housing Association Copeland Borough Council 10 in 1992 For rent, 10 two bedroom bungalows
Hawkeshead
Springwood,
Home Housing Association South Lakeland District Council 8 in 1995 For rent, 4 three bedroom houses, 2 two bedroom houses,
2 flats
Vale Cottages,
Mitre Housing Association Allerdale Borough Council 1997 For rent, 2 two bedroom houses, 3 three bedroom houses
Rosthwaite
Kiln Orchard,
Home Housing Association Allerdale Borough Council 1993 For rent, 3 three bedroom houses, 2 two bedroom house
Cross Garth,
Two Castles Housing Association Eden District Council 1993 For rent, 4 one bedroom flats, 6 two bedroom flats
Go to: Index, Chapter (1), 2, 3
Part 1. Effects of affordable Housing
Part I: The Effects of Affordable Housing on Rural Communities
This project has been supported by the Housing Corporation through its innovation and good practice grant programme. The contents of the report do not necessarily reflect the views of the Housing Corporation.
© Joint copyright remains with the Housing Corporation, Cumbria Rural Housing Trust and Jacqueline Blenkinship.
Plain Language Commission accreditation number: 6088
Chapter 1: Introduction and background to the research
Table – Breakdown of parameters used to select settlements for research
Table – Development details
Chapter 2: The effects of affordable housing on rural communities
Village reports
Bolton Eden District Council
Braithwaite Allerdale Borough Council
Castle Carrock Carlisle City Council
Chapel Stile South Lakeland District Council
Cliburn Eden District Council
Coniston South Lakeland District Council
Glenridding Eden District Council
Gosforth Copeland Borough Council
Hawkshead South Lakeland District Council
Lorton Allerdale Borough Council
Rosthwaite Allerdale Borough Council
Shap Eden District Council
Key findings – Sustainability of the community
The effects of affordable housing on rural communities
Housing needs evidence base for development of the schemes
The developments
The cost of a bag of shopping
Chapter 3: Sustainability of housing stock
Table – Sustainability of housing stock
Analysis of the sustainability of housing stock in each village
Go to: (Index), Chapter 1, 2, 3
To understand the benefits of affordable housing in rural Cumbria, it is also important to understand the planning policies that made the development possible and the five main requirements for the successful delivery of an affordable housing development through the existing planning system. We aimed to show how the development came about; what planning was needed; the timescale of each project; the resulting developments; but most importantly – and the point of this piece of research – whether the rest of the community was affected by the building of extra houses that local people could afford.
The planning legislation that enabled planning permission to be granted for the developments in our case studies can all be found in the Structure Plan or Local Plan of the relevant district or planning authority. Excerpts relevant to this research are included below.
1. Exception sites
Where a planning authority wishes to approve proposals for affordable housing outside the existing village boundary, this will only be possible if the planning authority has an exceptions policy and such a policy is clearly stated, unless the authority believes the reasons for a departure from their local plan are highly material.
Policies within the Lake District National Park plan allow:
'As an exception to policy H5, housing development may be permitted on suitable small sites in the open countryside adjoining the defined boundaries of the larger settlements, as shown on the Insert Maps, where all the following criteria are satisfied:
the development proposed is designed to meet a demonstrated local need for affordable housing;
submitted details are acceptable in terms of access, layout and design;
the local need for the housing proposed is sufficient to outweigh the harm to the character of the settlement, its landscape setting, or local recreational opportunities;
a planning obligation is secured, or a condition imposed, to ensure that the dwellings are managed, in the long term, to provide accommodation only for local persons in need of affordable housing.'
Extract from policy H8 of the Lake District National Park Authority's 1995 Structure Plan.
Eden District Council currently has a similar policy, which states:
'The Council may exceptionally grant planning permission for small scale housing development, in addition to that permitted under policies HS1 and HS4, to meet specific local needs for affordable housing which cannot otherwise be met. In order to be considered for release such land will be assessed against those criteria set out in Policy HS4 and must also:
be related in scale to the level of substantiated need in the locality;
be the subject of an agreement (usually under Section 106) which will ensure both first and subsequent occupancy of the dwellings to people from the locality; and
be the subject of development and/or management proposals which will ensure the provision of housing at an affordable cost in perpetuity'
Eden Local Plan December 1996
2. Section 106 planning obligations
The exception sites policies require that the development of such sites is subject to an 'agreement' such as a Section 106 planning obligation agreement. There are several sections in such an agreement; these sections could comprise any or all of the following:
site location;
planning permission number;
objects of the development;
definitions of legal terms;
terms of occupancy;
the allocation of the property.
Allocation of properties – local lettings
Development can only take place on an exception site if a local survey has identified need. Houses are built with a lifespan in excess of 60 years, however, need and demand change over time. The allocations policy in such agreements needs to balance and target the provision of homes for local people with letting the houses in the long term. A cascade approach to the allocation of homes should be used, to adjacent parishes, the district and the county, if no local residents are in need. This will ensure that homes are not left empty.
Early Lake District National Park Section 106 Planning Obligation Agreements state that to be allocated a home on a development site the association must consider that the person is in need and:
has immediately prior to such allocation been a resident within the Parish; or
has strong local connection with the said Parish and in seeking to allocate any such dwelling house consider
family association in the said Parish; or
any periods of ordinary residence in the said Parish not immediately before the date upon which any unit of accommodation becomes vacant; or
whether such person has permanent employment in the said Parish
If, having undergone this process, there are no suitable occupants for a vacant home, then the process is to be repeated for the locality. A nomination is sought from the local authority's Housing Department and if nobody has been nominated within 14 days, the association can allocate the property to someone it judges to be in need of the property.
These agreements have been refined and simplified to the most recent form of words:
'The objects of the Association in carrying out the development are:
1. to construct dwellings which will fulfil the needs of the locality for housing which is affordable within the terms of the policies of the Housing Corporation and the Secretary of State for the Environment (as expressed in Planning Policy Guidance Note 3, Annex A dated March 1993 or any amendment thereafter or any other expression of Government policy in that regard) and of the Development Plan for the Lake District'
The allocation of properties is also simplified to:
'a person or persons within the parish with a local need; or in the event of reasonable measures to procure such a person or persons having been taken and failed'
a person from the immediate locality (adjacent parishes)
a person from the District
'any other person or persons considered by the Association to be in need of such accommodation and who throughout the period of three years immediately preceding their occupation had their only or principal home or are employed or are to be employed or were last employed in the County of Cumbria'
Mortgagee in possession
Mortgagee-in-possession clauses, or the lack of them, have led to great debate, disagreement and delay in the issue of planning permission notices over recent years. Disagreement delays the delivery of new homes.
The basis of the disagreement is founded on clause 6 of Annex B: Providing for rural exception housing; of Planning Policy Guidance note 3: Housing. This states:
'Where planning permission is granted for affordable housing on exception sites, the local planning authority should satisfy itself that adequate arrangements are in place to reserve the housing in question for local needs, both initially and in the perpetuity. Both planning conditions and planning obligations may be used for this purpose. The inclusion of clauses in planning obligations which would enable lenders of private finance to dispose of property on the open market as a last resort if a borrower were to get into financial difficulties, are unacceptable in respect of housing schemes on exception sites. Such clauses should also be unnecessary in the case of loans to registered social landlords, in part, because of the safeguards to private lenders offered by the Housing Act 1996.'
This clause also refers the reader to 28 of Planning Circular 6/98, which takes a similar approach:
'Where a local planning authority seeks to impose strict occupancy controls, lenders of private finance often require registered social landlords (RSL) to negotiate for the inclusion of clauses in planning obligations which would enable the lender to dispose of the property on the open market as a last resort, if the RSL is in financial difficulty. The need for such clauses can be avoided, in the vast majority of cases, if the local planning authority leaves the issue of controlling occupancy to the RSL. The Housing Corporation would take steps to persuade against open market disposal, but could not prevent lenders from doing so if the terms on which they had lent allowed such disposal. However, should lenders seek the inclusion of such clauses in planning obligations relating to affordable housing secured via the policy in this Circular, local planning authorities will wish to weigh the balance of interests carefully and make their own judgements as to the appropriateness of agreeing to such clauses. Such clauses are inappropriate on rural exception sites, where planning permission is granted, as an exception to the development plan, for sites which would not normally be released for development, to provide low-cost housing for local needs in perpetuity; it would, therefore, be unacceptable in planning terms for such housing to be sold on the open market.'
The Lake District National Park Authority has included mortgagee-in-possession clauses within its Section 106 planning obligation agreements.
Early clauses state that the association can only sell the properties on the development if disposal is:
pursuant to any statutory provision now or hereinafter in force; or
pursuant to the authorisation of the Housing Corporation under Section 9 of the Housing Associations Act 1985 (or any act amending or replacing the same); or
by any Mortgagee or Charge now or at any time in the future subsisting in respect of the development or any part or parts thereof; or
pursuant to an order of the courts; and
the disposal is:
to a registered housing association as defined in the Housing Associations Act 1985 aforesaid; or
to a person who throughout the period of three years immediately preceding the disposal had his only or principle home in the County of Cumbria or to joint purchasers at least one of whom has throughout the said period of three years had his only or principle home in the County of Cumbria
There are five main requirements for the successful delivery of an affordable housing development through the existing planning system.
1. Accurate, timely, robust and wherever possible independently produced housing needs information
Needs information is only accurate for a short time, as individual and family circumstances change.
Most developers would not provide a new development to meet 100% of the housing need discovered in any individual survey. By providing fewer homes than required initially, they deliver homes for those in highest need, with those in less urgent need able to obtain second and subsequent lettings. This also gives a slightly longer validity to the needs data collected, as only a major event, e.g. closure of a major employer in the area, would change need significantly.
The independence of the needs data is crucial to lend impartiality to the process, favouring neither the developer, landowner, lobby group nor district council. A body such as a Rural Housing Enabler should alone be responsible for the collation and initial analysis of the data collected.
There may be the opportunity to provide further new homes in the future. This is preferable to building too many homes in the first instance, which increases the risk of allocating homes to people who are not local, having empty homes or having to sell them because the developer gets into financial difficulties.
There is evidence of low turnover in many of the case-study villages, suggesting that a larger percentage of identified need can be provided for in any initial development of homes without risk of over-supply.
2. Agreement to the most suitable available site for the development
This is probably the most controversial matter with most rural developments. Many factors come into play:
Availability – the willingness to sell.
Affordability – availability at an affordable price, affordable within the financial feasibility of the developer, based on the provision of affordable houses, and the development constraints of the land.
Location of the site – in relation to the village boundary and local plan status.
Location of the site – in relation to services, amenities and topography.
The number of players is also a factor. It would be ideal if they were all to agree as to which site is the most suitable of any available (although this rarely happens as can be seen in the case-study villages):
The village community as a whole
Adjacent owners
Highways department
District council.
3. Detailed site investigation work including boundaries, dimension, topography and services available to the site
Most housing associations do not buy land before outline or detailed planning permission has been confirmed, and so any initial investigation work is often undertaken at the association's financial risk. Many find themselves reluctant to undertake extensive investigation, which can cost up to £2,000, if they are not guaranteed the development against which to offset the cost.
Insufficient or inaccurate boundary dimensional information can affect the whole basis of the application. They can mean that negotiations for additional land purchase and amendments to plans must take place between the decision date, signing the Section 106 agreement and the permission notice date, so delaying the overall process. This delay can be seen in many of the case-study projects.
4. Detailed investigation with statutory agencies, particularly the highways authority, regarding appropriate access and visibility requirements
In three schemes, at Lorton, Glenridding and Chapel Stile, earlier involvement and negotiation between the developer and the highways authority might well have reduced the overall timescale of the planning process. In these instances, the initial planning application had not dealt with requirements for vehicular visibility to the highways department's satisfaction.
If early dialogue between the parties had led to agreement before making a planning application, then the necessary land, cost and design could have been included within the initial proposals, reducing timescales overall.
5. Standard section 106 agreement clauses including a pragmatic mortgagee-in-possession clause. Amendments to standard clauses only being necessary to reflect site-specific details
The majority (66%) of the developments considered have been delivered through stated exception site policies. It is therefore vital that such policies should continue to be incorporated into Local Development Frameworks to ensure the development of new restricted affordable housing to meet the needs of a community.
The inclusion of mortgagee-in-possession clauses also appears to be vital, despite the statement in National Planning Policy that:
'Such clauses should also be unnecessary in the case of loans to registered social landlords, in part, because of the safeguards to private lenders offered by the Housing Act 1996',
With pragmatic foresight, the Lake District National Park and their peers incorporated sensible mortgagee-in-possession clauses into the draft of their planning obligations. Otherwise it is questionable how many of the 97 properties in these case-study villages could have been provided, due to lack of available funding. Many of the financiers of social housing do not have the same faith in the mechanisms of the Housing Act 1996 on which to base the guarantee for, often sizable, loan funding. This can leave housing associations with a development site and planning permission, but no funding to carry out the development.
Unfortunately, in most instances, for the developer to be a signatory to the agreement they must have a controlling interest in the land. Usually this means being the owner, or requiring the site owner to negotiate and become a signatory to the agreement. Where the owner is not the developer this need for an extra negotiating party adds complexity, and many owners are unwilling to sign any planning obligation as their interest is with the land sale, not onward development.
The following village reports look at 12 villages in Cumbria where affordable housing has been developed. Each case study aims to assess the effect of the development on the sustainability of the village. Reports are placed in alphabetical order, and a summary of the key findings can be found in Chapter 3.
CLICK EACH VILLAGE TO SEE ITS REPORT
Sustainability of the community
Communities viewed affordable housing as important in bringing them stability, and without it many of the villages would have seen their community dying.
Schemes with local occupancy clauses were welcomed and it was important to local residents that affordable housing remained for local households.
Service providers, schools, local shops and local employers saw the schemes as essential to enable young people and families to remain within the community and contribute to its economy.
Children from families living in the schemes, attending local schools, have been essential in keeping the schools running.
Affordable housing helped to maintain family links.
In general, communities felt there was a real need for more of this provision to enable younger people to stay in the community.
This was reinforced in communities with high averages of second/holiday homes where, without the development, the community would have not survived.
Lack of move-on accommodation was evident. Once allocated a tenancy, households would be likely to stay in it for the long term.
People saw the schemes as essential due to high house prices and high demand for properties in their community.
Developments had a positive knock-on effect on other community facilities such as the rebuilding of village halls.
In areas of high demand and high numbers of eligible households on the housing register, housing associations had temporarily suspended the register for new applications.
In communities where the housing market was still fairly accessible to local-income households, housing association development was seen as simply a natural form of tenure in a community.
In communities of high housing market prices with demand from people wishing to retire or buy holiday or second homes, there was a consensus that more development was needed and what had been supplied was not enough to stop the drain of young people and families from the community
Negative comments about the developments we studied related to the (high) levels of rents and Council Tax charged for the properties in relation to local salary levels. However, residents appreciated they were far below rents for private rented accommodation and for homes to buy on the open market.
Housing needs surveys provided a vital evidence base for detailed planning consent. In all developments they enabled the successful allocation of schemes to residents in compliance with section 106, and successful subsequent lettings.
Subsequent housing need surveys conducted by communities where development had taken place are still identifying a need for affordable housing provision among concealed households where single adults and young couples are living with families, in expensive and insecure private rented accommodation, split households and tied accommodation no longer suitable for the families needs.
The average time for detailed planning consent was seven months – the shortest period three months; longest 12 months.
Delays occurred as a result of site acquisition, planning requirements, negotiating section 106 agreements and objections.
Objections raised centred around:
difficult access;
increase in traffic and parking difficulties;
loss of visual amenity with design urban style intrusive to the landscape;
materials to be used;
loss of land better used for agricultural purposes;
misconceptions around the possibility that in future houses would not be used to meet local needs and around the letting policy of the housing association;
noise;
disposal of sewerage;
proximity to the adjacent owner and concerns over effects on property value;
detrimental effects on the tourism industry;
setting of a precedent to lead to further such developments in future;
insufficient evidence of housing need;
protection of trees.
In each case, once the scheme was completed and let, many of these fears were allayed.
Residents viewed schemes positively; in that they were well designed and far more sympathetic to the surroundings than much of the privately owned stock.
A number of communities had produced petitions for such development which helped in the planning process – showing the power of community involvement.
Eight out of the 12 communities were enabled to undertake such development as an exception to planning policy.
In most developments the parish council, local authorities and highways departments accepted the schemes.
The end products have been successful in retaining families and local households within communities.
Affordable housing schemes were seen as environmentally in keeping with the villages' appearance.
Development restrictions imposed by the National Park did not serve the best interests of the community.
There was a 50% average return rate to the survey questionnaires.
83% of residents in the developments had come from the village or had strong family connections and the development had enabled these family links to be maintained in all cases.
The remaining 17% of residents had moved from nearby parishes to access more suitable accommodation.
Reasons for moving included unsuitable accommodation, insecure and expensive private tenancy, children at local school, to form a new household, increase accommodation size, access to services and for health reasons.
Developments were very settled, with on average only one re-let a year.
Three schemes were purpose-built accommodation for the elderly or households with special needs. In most cases the development had enabled households to access more suitable accommodation, maintain family links, move closer to family for support and enable households requiring such accommodation to remain in the village.
79% of residents worked either part time or full time with travel-to-work distances in the main averaging a 5-10 mile radius of the parish.
In one community the travel-to-work distances ranged from 5-40 miles - this was in Hawkshead where the main industry was tourism.
The remaining 21% were either retired, unemployed or unable to work.
Household weekly income details given ranged from £150 to £200 and £200 to £250.
The majority of residents had access to a vehicle and would be prepared to commute distances to access employment if it meant they could remain in the community.
Public transport was not used as a means to access employment mainly because the service available would not allow access to employment centres for normal working times or was expensive.
The three main attributes of living in the villages were, in order of preference:
scenery, peace and quiet;
sense of community and belonging, including the maintenance of family connections;
accessibility to services and public transport.
Communities felt that high numbers of second or holiday homes and people retiring to the village did not help to sustain communities.
Splits were emerging in some communities between new more affluent households and households with a local connection.
These communities were split between households who wished to retain the peace and tranquillity of the village and households who wished to see more development to enable families who live and work locally to move in.
People expressed regret for dwindling community spirit as a result of this emerging split.
The range of services available differed greatly in each community. Most had a post office with small grocery shop, pub, school and village hall.
The school, post office and shop were seen as essential to the heart of the community.
In all cases to shop locally was more expensive than in nearby town supermarkets.
In areas where tourism was the main employer there was evidence of two scenarios emerging:
The tourism industry enabled a wider range of services to be provided locally such as a pharmacist, clothes and gift shops, banks and a number of pubs.
Essential services were expensive and geared towards the tourism trade, providing for example takeaway foods and clothing and not necessarily meeting the needs of the community.
There was clear evidence that the lack of three basic services – the shop, post office and school could affect the sustainability of the community. For example, in Cliburn the shop and school had recently closed and the pub reported difficulties in attracting trade.
In larger communities where more services existed, such as several pubs, bank and library, there were numerous community activities including computer and language courses and yoga classes.
Many of the larger communities were within geographical valley settlements and served the more rural locations.
In areas of valley settlements with one service such as a shop, residents would use a nearby post office or school in a neighbouring settlement. This was evident in Chapel Stile where nearby Elterwater provided additional services and the two settlements together provided a range of services and activities.
There were examples of real community action. In Cliburn the shop has disappeared but newspapers are delivered to one resident's house for other residents to collect.
Residents placed great importance on having a primary school in the village. Nine out of the 12 communities we visited has primary school education for children between 4 and 11 years old.
In general, the smaller the school the fewer pupils per teacher (about 14), which often led to a good teaching quality and curriculum, according to the OFSTED reports.
In larger schools with more children per teacher (about 22), teaching standards and curriculum varied from satisfactory to good according to the OFSTED report.
All schools were classed as good for dealing with children with special needs.
All schools had positive and supportive parents of children in the school.
In all cases where the development had enabled families with children to remain in the village, it had had a positive effect on the number of children in the school and ultimately its sustainability.
Only one community, Coniston, had a secondary school. Secondary schools were in nearby market towns.
A notable lack of importance was attached to the role of the police within the community. None of the residents mentioned the service as important to the sustainability of the community.
The majority of communities had had police stations which were now closed.
Community police officers patrolled the rural settlements daily, and every month a mobile van visited the community.
None of the communities had part-time police stations. They tended to be in nearby market towns.
Only one settlement, Coniston, had an operational part-time fire station. All the other communities again relied on nearby larger settlements where a part-time service was available.
An average of 85% of residents in the rural communities had access to and owned at least one vehicle and would use it to travel to work.
This is above the Cumbrian average of 75% (www.cumbria.gov.uk Census Key statistics).
This is evidence of the importance of having a vehicle in rural communities.
A range of public transport services was provided in many of the rural settlements during the tourism season and either ceased or became less frequent when the number of visitors declined.
There was also some indication that public transport was seen as expensive and unreliable and did not enable residents to get to main centres of employment during normal working hours. In addition it was not necessarily a year-round service, with more services in the tourism season.
The smaller the community, the less the economic diversity of the parish.
Market towns were important as main centres of employment for the rural communities.
Usually there was one main employer, either tourism or agriculture, and it was uncertain whether this helped to sustain a community in the long term.
Salary details given ranged from £150 - £200 to £200 - £250 per week.
Affordable housing was seen as essential in sustaining these rural communities.
Other employment opportunities were directed towards service provision, for example running the local shop, working at the school, working in the garage etc.
In small communities such as Glenridding and Braithwaite where tourism has become a main employer, there seemed to be few other employment opportunities and residents had to commute to main centres of employment.
Commuter rural communities were emerging, where new residents were able to purchase market properties and commute long distances to work to command higher salaries. This appeared to be causing splits in communities, for example in Castle Carrock and Cliburn where new housing built or existing housing stock is expensive and aimed at meeting the needs of high earners and not local income earners.
A number of residents were skilled tradesmen; joiners, plumbers, mechanics and electricians, showing the importance and adaptability of such a skill in a changing economy.
There was evidence that main traditional employers within parishes, for example Kirkstone quarries in Elterwater, significantly affected the economy of Chapel Stile and Coniston.
Interestingly, large new employment opportunities related to tourism do not seem to affect local employment opportunities. For example, Center Parcs was not a main employer in either Bolton or Cliburn.
As part of the research it was important to illustrate the actual difference residents in rural areas would pay for eight basic food items in the communities, compared with the bigger stores in the market towns.
The eight-item food shopping basket included:
1 tin baked beans
1 pint milk
100g coffee
100 bags tea
4 toilet rolls
The local shop has an essential role in sustaining rural communities. However, with the economies of scale that larger nearby supermarkets can achieve, many residents choose to do their main shopping away from the village and use the local shop for essentials or when they run out of certain items. So the role of the local shop has diminished over the years. In areas where tourism is strong, the role of the shop has changed towards focusing on the tourist trade, as was evident in Glenridding where take-away foods were sold.
The table below shows that in each community an eight-item food shopping basket costs more in the village shop than in the supermarkets in the larger market towns. The arrow represents the difference in this cost between the cheapest place to buy the items (Asda in Kendal), other market towns and the village shops. In Chapel Stile it cost 116% more - a substantial amount - to buy the same items. The table below that shows the information in data format.
In our interviews, most respondents spoke of using their village shop for 'top-up items' and for convenience but would do their main shop in the bigger stores. In Glenridding, the village shop explained the change they had faced over the years. When it had been a mining village it was common for the residents to use the shop as a major source for their weekly shopping. This had all changed and, to compensate and to take advantage of the tourist industry, the shop now produces quick snacks. However, it is getting increasingly hard for local shops to remain economically viable – hence the higher prices – and yet the residents spoke of this service being an important part of their community.
(1 white loaf) Milk
(1 pint) Eggs
(6 no) Baked Beans
(435g) Tea
(80-100 bags) Coffee
(100g) Toilet Rolls
(4) Butter
(250g) Total Petrol
(1 litre unleaded)
Rosthwaite £0.84 £0.40 £0.65 £0.50 £2.27 £2.39 £1.30 £1.20 £9.55 -
Lorton £0.99 £0.40 £0.70 £0.36 £1.59 £1.89 £1.78 £0.95 £8.66 -
Braithwaite N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A -
Bolton £0.96 £0.42 £0.65 £0.50 £1.89 £1.38 £0.99 - £6.70 0.88
Cliburn N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A -
Shap £0.59 £0.30 £0.54 £0.37 £1.25 £1.28 £1.59 £0.43 £6.35 -
Glenridding £0.69 £0.46 £0.66 £0.45 £2.15 £2.29 £0.99 £0.99 £8.68 -
Coniston £0.79 £0.59 £0.79 £0.36 £1.05 £2.55 £0.80 £0.99 £7.92 -
Chapel Stile £0.89 £0.49 £0.62 £0.49 £1.99 £2.25 £1.79 £1.19 £9.71 -
Hawkshead £0.69 £0.37 £0.89 £0.21 £1.29 £1.15 £0.99 £0.37 £5.96 -
Gosforth £0.62 £0.33 £0.62 £0.19 £1.19 £2.89 £0.99 £0.92 £7.75 -
Castle Currock £0.64 £0.45 £0.50 £0.42 £1.09 £1.89 £2.30 £0.95 £8.24 -
Cockermouth £0.39 £0.30 £0.79 £0.34 £1.39 £1.17 £0.80 £0.77 £5.95 0.749
Penrith £0.26 £0.31 £0.44 £0.39 £0.62 £1.69 £0.65 £0.69 £5.05 0.749
Kendal £0.39 £0.29 £0.52 £0.09 £0.94 £1.17 £0.56 £0.54 £4.50 0.729
Go to: Index, Chapter 1, (2), 3
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Leave it to Lassie to Deliver the Mail
Ed Martin
Ed Martin Report
We've been hearing a lot about problems with our postal service for quite a while now, beginning during the final year of the Trump presidency and continuing to this moment, when we are repeatedly reminded to mail holiday packages as early as possible and to expect everyday mail to take longer than expected to arrive at its destination for the foreseeable future. How did we come to this? That's a long conversation filled with shared and conflicting opinions. As is usual with me, when I ponder the present my mind goes to television programs of the past that addressed similar situations in the simpler terms of their time. In this case, an episode of the vintage series Lassie that was first seen in 1959 comes to mind. You read that right.
Ed Martin is editorial advisor of MyersBizNet and its Watch, Listen & Learn platform. He's also the chief television and content critic for MediaVillage. He has written about television and internet programming for several Myers publicatio… read more

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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House Passes Offshore Drilling Legislation, But It Won't Lower Gas Prices at All
Even George W. Bush's economics adviser says that the act passed today in the House won't bring down the price of gas.
Ben Jervey
This afternoon, the House passed legislation that will fast-track lease sales for offshore oil production.
According to E2-Wire, the Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act would "set a deadline for holding delayed Gulf of Mexico oil and gas lease sales. It would also mandate the sale of leases off the Virginia coast, a plan the administration nixed after last year's Gulf oil spill."
The first of three pieces of oil and gas drilling legislation being pushed by GOP leadership, it's being sold as a way to ease the burden of $4 per gallon gas.
"We're in this situation because of this administration's policies that have shut off energy supply," Steve Scalise, the Republican representative from Louisiana, said.
He was totally wrong.
If we were to pursue the most aggressive possible plan of offshore drilling, the most we could reduce gas prices, compared to completely freezing all new leases forever, would only be $0.05 per gallon. In 2030.
Here's the chart I created playing with the EIA's Annual Energy Outlook. You can get more details in my earlier post. Basically, the green line is the price of gas if we drill the hell out of offshore wells (three times what we're currently producing); the purple line underneath it is the price of gas if we never sell another offshore drilling lease; the light blue line, which is almost impossible to see, is the business-as-usual case.
As I wrote before:
If it looks like there's just one line there, that's because the three lines are virtually right on top of each other. Whether we dramatically expand offshore drilling or stop selling offshore drilling leases entirely, there will be essentially no impact on the price of gasoline until 2020. If we look out as far as 2030, the difference would only be $0.05—$3.59 per gallon as opposed to $3.64 per gallon. The idea that offshore drilling would significantly ease the pain of high gas prices is a canard.
You don't need to take my word for it. Watch Doug Holtz-Eakin, the White House's Chief Economist under George W. Bush, tell Chris Matthews that "you can't change the oil price very much with the U.S. exploration."
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=124k93OEIrk
The only thing that Holtz-Eakin is wrong about is his last line. Not everyone's being honest about that.
Photo, public domain, by Genghiskhanviet


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The Two Duchesses: Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Elizabeth, Duchess of Devonshire
Author(s): Vere Foster
The Two Duchesses is family correspondence of and relating to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Elizabeth, Duchess of Devonshire, Earl of Bristol (Bishop of Derry), the Countess of Bristol, Lord Byron, the Earl of Aberdeen, Sir Augustus Foster and others 1777-1859, focusing on the period from America's independence to the fall of Napoleon.
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The Lion and the Dragon: Britain's Opium Wars with China 1839-1860
A Noble Way to Go: Deaths of English, Scots and Irish Peers 1100-1900
Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire: The Face Without a Frown
Chitral 1895: An Episode of the Great Game
An Edinburgh Diary 1793–1798
Queen Victoria and the European Empires
William Beckford's Fonthill: Architecture, Landscape and the Arts
The Daughters of George III
Jane Austen: Love is a Like a Rose
John Whitehurst: Innovator, Scientist, Geologist and Clockmaker
The Diary of a Cotswold Parson
Sabine Baring-Gould: The Life and Work of a Complete Victorian
The Consummate Collector: William Beckford's Letters to his Bookseller
David Livingstone, Africa's Greatest Explorer: The Man, the Missionary and the Myth (paperback]
A Spencer Love Affair: Eighteen Century Theatricals at Blenheim Palace
Charles Dickens: A Pictorial Biography of the World's Greatest Storyteller
David Livingstone, Africa's Greatest Explorer: The Man, the Missionary and the Myth (hardback)
A History of the Liverpool Waterfront 1850-1890: The Struggle for Organisation
Alfred: Queen Victoria's Second Son
Death by Chocolate: The Serial Poisoning of Victorian Brighton
Dearest Bess: The Live and Times of Lady Elizabeth Foster
Single letters are also included from Gibbon; Sheridan; Fox; the Prince Regent; General Moreau and Alexander, Emperor of Russia. The Devonshires were one of the first families of the land they were highly connected with George, Prince of Wales being a regular visitor to Devonshire house along with James Fox, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and other politicians and celebrities of the day.
They were at the centre of society and their interest to history is heightened by the celebrated m'nage a trois and other affairs which led both duchesses—at separate times—to seek a quiet period abroad to bear illegitimate children; Georgiana's daughter Eliza Courtney was sired by Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, who later became prime minister; Elizabeth's children, Caroline St Jules and Augustus Clifford were sired by William, the 5th Duke of Devonshire, who she later married.
Vere Foster, Elizabeth's grandson, had unique access to the papers and over a period of years produced accurate transcriptions of these historically important letters—often working from abominable scrawl—to provide us with fascinating window into the pinnacle of society of the period.
BOOK ISBN 9781781550151
PUBLICATION DATE 19 July 2018
TERRITORY World
ILLUSTRATIONS 55 colour illustrations
Vere Henry Louis Foster was born in Copenhagen in 1819, while his father was serving as British Minister to Denmark. He was educated at Eton and Oxford and after graduation, entered the Foreign Office where his promising career as a diplomat was put aside once he returned to Ireland, in 1847.The rest of his life was dedicated to helping his countrymen. He contributed towards building school houses in rural Ireland--he devised economic, but very effective school books, and tried to better the lot of the poorly paid Irish school teachers. For over forty years Vere Foster gave freely of his own money until his death in 1900. During his life he assisted around 25,000 people to start a new life in the Americas and it is believed he spent approximately 100,000 pounds sterling on other charitable endeavours while he himself lived on very modest means.
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There are a lot of Polish people in the UK. Some of them are here for a short period of time and some plan to stay, considering this country as their new home. We make friends, integrate with local communities and slowly break stereotypes about our nation.
What do they think about Poland?
What do they have to say about Poles?