Build more rural housing 'or Shropshire's villages will die'

More affordable housing must be built in Shropshire's villages or else they will "die", the leader of a campaign group warned today.

Andy Boddington, chairman of the county branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said it was vital new homes were built in villages for young people who worked or grew up there. Village housing at the moment often went to the retired wealthy or for holiday homes, he said.

He made the comments in response to a new report by the National Housing Federation, CPRE and other countryside groups.

Mr Boddington said: "We have a choice. Build affordable housing in villages or let those villages die.

"If we are to have a beautiful countryside, it must thrive. For it to thrive, people need to work in the landscape to keep its pubs, shops and above all its schools alive.

"We have a growing problem here in Shropshire with village housing being taken up by the wealthy retired and second home owners, or rented out as holiday cottages.

"We need places to live for the people who work in our pubs, staff our post offices and teach in our schools. We must build small scale affordable housing for them.

"Affordable housing need not damage the beauty and tranquillity of the countryside. What we need is small developments of affordable housing near to where people work. We need developments that are sympathetically tucked into the folds of rural landscape and in tune with local building styles."

Mr Boddington said there needed to be an overhaul of the way affordable housing was provided in Shropshire.

He said: "Our greatest worry is that affordable housing is often only funded through contributions from developers who want to build sprawling estates of market housing.

"We need new models of house building such as Community Land Trusts. That way we can get the affordable housing we need without destroying Shropshire's greatest asset, the natural and historic environment."

The report, Affordable Housing Keeps Villages Alive, is published by the National Housing Federation, Campaign to Protect Rural England, Countryside Alliance, Commission for Rural Communities and Action with Communities in Rural England.

By Russell Roberts