HCA launches rural e-learning course and toolkit

The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) today launched its first e-learning course and toolkit aimed specifically at those interested in or specialising in rural housing provision – including Local Authorities, Registered Providers and developers. Both tools aim to address the issue of provision of affordable housing, which is a particular challenge in rural areas.

Launched ahead of the National Housing Federation’s Rural Housing Week, which runs from 11-17 July, the course “Affordable Rural Housing – Bringing affordable homes to rural areas”, is a free online module offering participants the opportunity to learn about a range of topics including:
 

• Land identification
• Planning
• Rural Housing Partnerships
• Community-led affordable housing
• Design and sustainability
• Local authorities’ allocations processes, and
• Older and vulnerable people in rural areas

In rural areas, the impact of lower average earnings combined with higher house prices creates significant challenges for communities, which can lead to the break-up up of family ties and other networks. This can result in communities becoming less diverse and unsustainable, as businesses close and people move away.

The course aims to challenge some of the myths associated with these issues, and explains some of the more complex planning terms associated with rural housing. Successful community-led models for delivering affordable rural housing are highlighted – such as Community Land Trusts, Community Right to Build and Community Interest Companies.

Candy Atherton, Chair of the HCA’s Rural Housing Advisory Group and HCA Board member, said:

“Rural housing is an important part of our work and we are already investing in rural communities through our Affordable Homes Programme. This course will help complement that, as part of our offer as an enabling agency, and we hope that partners involved in rural housing will find it an invaluable tool for their local investment planning and help them achieve the ambitions for their areas.

“The HCA exceeded its delivery targets for rural housing in the last Spending Review Period, which is concrete proof that the demand for a supply of rural affordable housing remains undiminished, and, in our capacity as enabler, we must play our part in helping to address this.”

Ric Pallister, Leader of Council and Executive member for Housing at South Somerset:

“A clear and comprehensive understanding of the challenges surrounding rural affordable housing must be linked to a basic knowledge of the facts, and the HCA’s e-learning module is an excellent starting point.  I would recommend it to all practitioners engaged in rural housing. Self help is the order of the day and we should all be taking advantage of every opportunity to enhance our knowledge, and none of us are too experienced not to learn more.”

Other best practice initiatives the course draws on include Cornwall’s site identification toolkit, and Oxford’s Landowner Incentivisation Strategy. Highlighted local authority case studies include Little Hadham near Stevenage, New Forest District Council and Borough of Kings Lynn and West Norfolk Council. The course also highlights an example of the PassivHaus standard - considered to be the world’s leading standard in energy efficient construction – at  rural housing specialist Hastoe Housing’s Wimbish development in Essex.

The “Village Affordable Housing Handbook” is an interactive toolkit designed to help planners and communities better understand the impacts of the provision of new affordable housing in small rural settlements. It is provided to help people make a case for, and demonstrate the positive impacts of, affordable housing. The Handbook incorporates a sustainability tool which will help can be used to assess the sustainability of rural communities and the contribution that new affordable housing can make to enhance their sustainability in the future.

The course can be accessed by logging onto  the HCA’s Virtual Learning Environment  at http://www.learnathca.co.uk/course/view.php?id=120, while the toolkit can be downloaded at  http://vahh.c4g.me.uk/.

Ends

For more media information please contact Helen Stoddart in the HCA press office on 020 7874 8263 / helen.stoddart@hca.gsx.gov.uk     

Notes to Editors

The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) is the single, national housing and regeneration delivery agency for England.  Our vision is to create opportunity for people to live in homes they can afford in places they want to live, by enabling local authorities and communities to deliver the ambition they have for their own areas.

Rural areas are those with a population of less than 10,000 people although the HCA and DEFRA classify villages as places with a population of 3,000 people or less.

The HCA is soon to publish a report capturing the Lessons Learned from the Rural Masterplanning Fund. The £1million fund set up by DCLG and Defra supported 46 rural Local Authorities in planning for growth. The Rural Masterplanning Fund was managed by the HCA and CABE and the report contains valuable lessons on spatial planning, design and skills building.  It features 12 case study projects that have transferable principles for other rural development projects.

For more about the HCA’s work on rural housing visit our rural housing web page.

The HCA exceeded its three year rural housing target of 8,500 homes, delivering a total of 8,993 homes between 2008-2011.

The figures for the period 2008-2011 can be broken down as follows:

  
Key facts highlighted in the e-course include:
 

• 13 rural pubs close in Britain every week.
• The number of second homes in some areas rocketed by up to 2000% in the last 5 years which has had a huge impact on affordability.
• According to NHF figures released in January 2011, the number of people accepted as homeless in rural areas had rocketed by 25% due to demand for affordable housing.
• The number of older people living in rural areas is higher than for other parts of the country. Population estimates suggest that in the next 25 years those aged over 75 will increase by 90% in rural areas compared to 47% in urban areas.

The “Village Affordable Housing Handbook” mirrors the recommendations contained within the Matthew Taylor report Living Working Countryside, which encouraged planners to look not at how sustainable a community is now, but how sustainable that community could be in the future.