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Osborne outlines plan for village homes
George Osborne has today announced a series of measures aimed at making it easier for villages to expand.
A paper published today titled Towards a one nation economy: A 10-point plan for boosting rural productivity contains a number of initiatives to enable more homes to be built around villages.
The paper, jointly published by the Treasury and the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said: “The government wants to ensure that any village in England has the freedom to expand in an incremental way, subject to local agreement.”
It said the government will make it easier for villages to establish neighbourhood plans and allocate land for new homes.
Rural exception sites - which are exempt from restirctions on housing development – will be used to deliver starter homes available to younger first-time buyers for a 20% discount.
The paper also said the government will review current thresholds for agricultural building conversions to homes and to introduce a dispute resolution for section 106 planning agreements, to speed up negotiations and “allow housing starts to proceed more quickly.”
The government has, however, pledged to protect the Green Belt.
UPDATE: 21.08.15, 5.47pm
