2nd opinion: Fact is worse than fiction

I have a confession to make – I'm a fan of The Archers. I realise that makes me middle-aged. Apparently, most of us who adore Radio 4 are. But I can't help myself and, recently, the soap has been exploring a subject that is dear to my heart – the housing problems of Roy and Hayley.

For those of you who are not addicted, the story goes like this: Roy and Hayley have been living with Roy's little daughter in the top of Marjorie's house. Marjorie is an old lady who has become distinctly frail and needs to move into the local care home. Marjorie has obtained a place at the care home and her house is up for sale; Roy and Hayley will have to leave and there is nowhere affordable for them to go. They are talking about leaving Ambridge (where they make an important contribution of the local economy) and moving to Birmingham, where they might have a chance of finding a place of their own.

This scenario is being played out in real communities all over the country. In my region, the prosperous South-east, the difference between the haves and the have-nots – that is, those that have secured a place on the property ladder and those that have not – is desperate. Beautiful villages are dying, their economies ruined because the only people who can afford to live there are people of a certain age who bought at the right time, or people who commute to high-paid jobs in the City.

West Kent is a stock transfer association covering a large section of green belt adjoining London. A high percentage of our village homes have been sold under the right to buy. In many villages, up to 80% of these good-quality, ex-council homes have been bought and are being resold on the open market for more than £250,000 each. The people they were designed to house are priced well out of the market and, like Roy and Hayley, are forced to move away.

I believe that, to sustain a mixed economy, all communities need a percentage of affordable homes. In west Kent, owner-occupation stands at more than 80% and, in many villages, it is closer to 95%. If houses were not so expensive this might not matter but, where they are, the likely long-term impact on the services people need to sustain a high quality of life and the economy is very bad indeed.

Village communities should be campaigning for more affordable housing. They should decide on the percentage of affordable housing their community needs and battle to get it. A few enlightened ones are. These are the people that see the connections between the long queues at the hospital, the inability to find a local tradesman to work on your home, and the impact on the environment of commuting.

  The majority, however, do not. Their attitude to development per se is negative and their attitude to affordable housing borders on the paranoid.

The village mentality tends to be very insular. There is a deep mistrust of the outside world and a tendency to hark back to a glorious past rather than accept the reality of the present. But without active intervention and champions for mixed rural communities who use the planning system to produce affordable housing, there is no chance that the trend to depopulate the countryside of anyone who isn't rich or old will be reversed. It's an uphill struggle.

That is why The Archers' storyline is important – it is a good opportunity to make more people aware of a real housing shortage that is affecting communities today, breaking up extended families and making life in the countryside much poorer.