When your job is to fight for more rural homes, life is a constant struggle with nimbys, unhelpful planners and stringent rules. Ellen Bennett reports on the role of rural housing enablers like Kalis – and the political changes that could help them.
Four years to agree a site for just four homes? Urban councils and registered social landlords would throw up their hands in horror and move on to something more worth their while. But in the countryside, four homes are sometimes all that's needed to make a difference to housing supply, and with planning constraints at every turn – not to mention frequently very vocal opposition from local people – four years is often what it takes to get the job done.

Rachel Kalis is one of the country's 37 rural housing enablers. She and her colleagues work with landowners, councils and RSLs to help them overcome the many hurdles that stand in the way of affordable housing. From collating information for housing needs surveys to defending developments at parish council debates, Kalis is here, there and everywhere.

Last year she and her fellow enablers – who are funded by the Countryside Agency and the Housing Corporation – delivered 113 homes in rural locations. They play an essential role: the government target is for 5000 new homes in the countryside in the next three years, but just 975 rural homes were completed in 2001/2 with Housing Corporation money, even though 21,300 rural households were classified as homeless. With social stock dwindling because of the right to buy and the end of local authority social housing grant last year, rural areas now rival urban ones for government attention. Meanwhile, the Haskins Report (see below) shows that Whitehall eyes are fixed firmly on the countryside.

The rural housing enabler programme is one of several initiatives aimed at increasing the supply of affordable rural housing. Others include changes to planning guidance (see "Exceptional", page 25).

During her four years in the job, Kalis herself has brought about the development of 45 homes. Although employed by North Dorset Community Action, an umbrella organisation for community initiatives, her work takes her all over north Dorset – as the two cases that she agreed to share with Housing Today show.

Case 1: Shrowton
Kalis has been struggling to build four affordable houses in the tiny village of Shrowton for four years. The saga began in 2000, when North Dorset council allocated the site for the development of 14 houses in its local plan. Four of these were to be affordable and Kalis secured a Housing Corporation grant of about £200,000.

Then English Nature called in the local plan, objecting that new houses on the designated site would block the view of a historic church from the road, which Kalis disagrees with. She attended many meetings fighting for the local plan, but English Nature won the appeal.

Here I am with the money to build houses, the need for houses in the village – and nowhere to build them

Casting around for another site, Kalis and landowner James Gibson-Fleming picked a field surrounding a dilapidated 16th-century barn. It was outside the development area, but they could apply for planning permission because Gibson-Fleming planned to use the money he made on the process to restore the barn and open it to the public, so they could apply as an "enabling development" – one that offers some public good. The council granted planning permission and it looked like the problem was solved – until the Government Office for the South-west called in the scheme because the site was outside the local plan and therefore against policy. Permission was rescinded following an inspectors' report.

Back to square one. "We couldn't believe it," says Kalis. "Everyone was in favour, but it fell through. So here I am with money to build four houses, the need for four homes in the village and nowhere to build them."

But there is light at the end of the tunnel. Kalis has found another landowner who may be willing to sell 2000 m2 in a small field at the edge of the village. She has visited and checked the site and it looks suitable, so it's back to the council for planning permission.

If it looks feasible, she will put the landowner in touch with a local housing association and take a step back while they negotiate terms. But even then, Kalis will be in the limelight: she will attend meetings and push the case for development yet again.

Case 2: Stourton Caundle
This case involved heavy-duty arm-twisting but Kalis' efforts resulted in two affordable houses and she is very proud of her success in this Dorset village.

A local farmer wanted to move out of the village and build new farm buildings. To finance this, he decided to sell his land in the village of Stourton Caundle for development.

That’s what this job is all about – you need one person whose role it is to really push things through, otherwise they just fall by the wayside

Rachel Kalis, rural housing enabler

He applied for permission as an enabling development but it was by no means certain that the application would be successful and in any case, part of the site was outside the development plan.

Enter Rachel Kalis. She knew that if the scheme included some affordable housing, she could apply for planning permission as a rural exception site (a loophole in the planning rules that allows affordable housing to be built outside the development area – see "Exceptional", below).

"We had a brilliant planning officer at the time," she says. "It was unorthodox, but with him we pushed it through."

Now, everybody's happy. The farmer has new buildings outside the village. Villagers are freed from the noise and mess of having a farm in their midst. And two local families are getting ready to move into their new homes within months.

Without Kalis, it's unlikely any of this would have happened. "I think that's what this job is all about," she says.

Haskins: a leaner, fitter countryside?

A streamlined land management agency would help to speed up the rural planning process – and an influential government-commissioned report has recommended just that. The Haskins Report, published in November last year, recommended merging the Rural Development Service with English Nature and the Countryside Agency – the three already all being funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. However, it’s a controversial suggestion as the move would involve slashing several hundred jobs. The report was undertaken by Labour peer Lord Haskins, who was the boss of Northern Foods before stepping down to concentrate on his advisory role with government. In November 2002, he was chosen to head up the rural delivery review at the behest of environment secretary Margaret Beckett. Beckett hasn’t decided whether to take Haskins’ advice. She’s keen on keeping the Countryside Agency in one form or another, but has broadly accepted the other recommendations. Agency chairman Sir Ewen Cameron, meanwhile, expects the agency to continue its rural proofing work with the regional housing boards. Whatever the outcome, the issue is sure to be a hot topic at the rural housing conferences taking place this month: they include the Local Government Association’s Rural Delivery Day in London this coming Monday and a series of seminars organised by the Rural Housing Trust.

Exceptional: the changing face of ppg3

Changes to planning guidance are afoot – proposals that, had they been in place at the time, could have cut years off the planning wrangles in Kalis’ casebook. Currently, planning policy guidance note PPG3 allows rural councils to give permission for affordable homes to be built on “exception sites” – land that would not otherwise be used for housing. However, the proposals would end this, replacing it with a new power that enables authorities to designate sites in their local plan specifically for affordable homes. In theory, this would mean Kalis’ sites could have been designated for affordable housing in the local plan, vastly shortening the planning process. An ODPM spokesman says: “It was decided to drop the rural exception policy because local authorities found that affordable housing through this route took too long – averaging five years. The allocation policy is designed to do a similar job quicker, more effectively.” Wealden District Council in East Sussex is the first council to take action off the back of the change. Amanda Hodge, housing policy and performance manager, says: “This is going to be a much more definite policy that will lock affordable housing into the local plan. Parish councils have been really enthusiastic that we’ve got this new tool to deliver affordable housing.” But critics of the change say it will send costs rocketing as unscrupulous landowners hold councils to ransom, refusing to release land until they get a higher price. “It will potentially give landowners a monopoly on local needs land,” says Keith Mitchell, head of housing at North Norfolk District Council. “At the moment you can shop around for sites; under the new policy they will be written into the local plan, so it will be that site or nothing.” Sir Ewen Cameron, chair of the Countryside Agency, said last week that he expects prices to rise – possibly to 10 times their current level. However, he supports the change – although he thinks the old policy should be continue until the new system has been proven. The ODPM has made no decision, but Justin Roxburgh, chief executive of Dorset-based Falcon Housing Association and a leading campaigner for exception sites, is confident. “It’s probable the existing system and the new system will be taken forward in parallel,” he says. Roxburgh will be reluctant to use pre-allocated sites. “Exception sites are for local people,” he says. “They come from the community upwards – we identify the need and then go around the village to identify possible sites. With the top-down process proposed, this will change.” But, with the government’s drive to build 5000 rural affordable homes over the next three years, being sympathetic to locals is not a priority. “The new system’s got more teeth,” says Merron Simpson, policy officer at the Chartered Institute of Housing, “and that seems to be what counts.”

Source

Housing Today