Last updated 15:40, Thursday, 07 August 2008

VILLAGES in the North are in danger of becoming dormitories for the well-off and retired as young families are priced out of the housing market, according to a new report.

Matthew Taylor MP has just published his study into The Living Working Countryside, and he says that the relatively higher cost of rural houses plus the lower average wage of rural workers are creating “unsustainable pressures”.

Mr Taylor says the latest average wage of people living in rural areas is £20,895 – about £4,670 lower than city dwellers’ pay packets. Couple this to the fact that the average house price is £8,000 more in the country than in the town, and you have an impossible mix.

Head of the National Housing Federation (NHF) in the North, Derek Long, agrees with Mr Taylor’s findings. He says: “Villages across the North are struggling to survive. Unless more affordable housing is built, villages will become exclusively for the elderly and wealthy.

“The Government must act now to prevent even more families being priced out of our villages. It is vital that the Taylor report helps revive them as places in which to live and work.”

The NHF North, representing more than 360 housing associations which own and manage 720,000 homes on behalf of nearly 1.5m people in this region, wants to see rapid Government action.

It wants the Government to increase its long-term target for new rural ‘social’ homes to 9,000 within three years.

It also wants local authorities to consider whether a village would be a sustainable place in which to live and work, before they turn down proposals for new homes.

And it wants local planners to work with communities to identify new sites for social housing.

The Taylor report added that employment opportunities in the countryside needed a boost, with more planning flexibility for home-based working and the creation of small businesses.

And it said that housing associations should lift any ban on people setting up home-based businesses in ‘affordable’ homes.

The Taylor report adds weight to the recent findings of the North East of England Plan, which set out ideas for jobs, homes and infrastructure in this region up to 2021.

The plan aims to deliver 128,900 new homes – 7,600 a year – to meet regional housing needs which are predicted to grow by at least 6,647 annually over that period.

The Tyne River Corridor is among the list of ‘key development areas’ given special attention in the plan.