More than 2,000 English villages risk being “frozen in time” because town halls have ruled they are unsustainable and not suitable for new homes, rural landowners have warned.
Cornwall, Wiltshire and central Lincolnshire are the areas with the most villages that, according to local planning strategies, cannot easily be expanded with new homes because they lack access to services such as post offices and primary schools.
Critics say that the system of branding villages unsustainable is being driven by nimby opposition to development. They add that it is causing a shortage of affordable rural housing and that younger people being forced to move to towns and cities. This means some villages will be inhabited by ageing populations, which potentially stores up problems for social care in the future.
The Country Land and Business Association (CLA), which has analysed hundreds of local authority planning policies, said: “The process effectively fossilises these villages instead of seeking to address the reasons behind why services are being lost, creating a cycle of decline.”
Read the full CLA report below.
Credit: The Guardian
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