More than 100,000 young people will leave the English countryside during the coming three years due to a “chronic shortage” of affordable housing, it was claimed today.

An estimated 103,000 people aged between 24 and 35 are expected to migrate from villages and market towns to urban areas by 2012, according to the National Housing Federation.

It highlights south Shropshire as an area that has already been badly hit.

The Federation, which represents housing associations in England, said the number of young people living in rural areas had been declining at an alarming rate for more than a decade.

Between 1997 and 2007 341,000 people aged between 24 and 35 left the countryside – the equivalent of 22 per cent of the age group. In South Shropshire the figure was 37 per cent.

David Orr, Federation chief executive, said today: “Rural England desperately needs young adults to support and contribute to their communities, but high house prices and a chronic shortage of affordable housing are thr- eatening to turn our villages into family-free zones.”

The group is calling on local authorities in rural areas to draw up action plans to address the housing needs of their communities.

Providing affordable housing is already a key priority of the new unitary Shropshire Council.

Its corporate plan states: “At the heart of our priorities is the aim to provide adequate affordable housing and job opportunities to enable people to live and work in Shropshire over the long term.”

But it faces a huge challenge. Figures earlier this year revealed that more than 1,300 affordable homes in Shropshire – excluding Telford & Wrekin -– which already have planning permission, had not been built.

And statistics released by the Commission for Rural Communities showed that house prices across Shropshire are almost seven times more than the average income in the county.

In south Shropshire the average house price is £215,000 – 7.9 times more than the average household income of £26,170.

By Dave Morris