Rural Housing Week is making the housing sector to think about the need for sensitive affordable development to keep our village communities alive. Urban landlords can learn some important lessons from specialist rural housing providers. Here are my top 10 examples of best practice in rural housing:
1. Community engagement
Close community engagement is essential in developing rural housing schemes – from initial consultation, through design and planning and lifetime management of the home. We have a strong relationship with our communities. We would advise our urban counterparts to think the same way we do about local people, and set up shared goals with your residents.
2. Meet needs
Building to meet identified need, rather than speculative development, is central to what we do. Demand must be established through housing needs surveys and by working with communities to identify exactly what type of housing they need, and where. Our developments are often led by residents themselves – local people tell us about need for new homes in the area and we respond to it.
3. Principles of design
Sympathetic design to fit in with the surrounding area is a vital component of our developments. In both design and materials, our schemes need to complement the surrounding architecture. We also have to be sensitive to environmental and conservation issues, from landscaping and creating natural habitats to timing development work so it causes the least disturbance to local wildlife.
4. Measure impact
We are very aware of the social and economic impact of our developments. We talk to local people and keep them in the area by housing them in our developments. Their input into our work means we can help to keep the village shop open or maintain pupil numbers to protect a rural school from closure.
5. Local connection
Our housing meets the area's needs; lettings restricted to people with local connections. We only let homes to those with ties to the area, through family or work. This helps us to create sustainable, long-term communities.
6. Use community networks
We specialise in providing housing management services which take into account villagers' concerns. We try to be responsive to changing need, and we use community groups and networks to address the issues that inevitably arise when we start a new project or development. We have learned that working through existing channels works better than imposing a 'consultation' on residents.
7. Pick people who are involved with your work
Community involvement plays a key role in the allocation of our homes, as well as in developing our schemes in the first place. This helps us ensure new residents at our schemes fulfil the criteria of having a strong tie to the area.
8. Work for them
We act as advocates for rural housing by working with politicians – from parish councillors to MPs – to improve understanding of what we do, raise awareness of the need for affordable housing in country communities and influence national policy.
9. Promote partnership
To be successful, rural schemes involve a range of partners, from planning authorities and parish councils to rural community groups. We have to make sure that residents have a real sense of ownership of the whole process from design to development – even in selecting new tenants.
10. Know your strengths and values
As a small organisation, we are flexible enough to meet changing needs and priorities while retaining our founding focus. Our core mission is important to us. Another strength is that our board members have a long-standing connection or passionate interest in rural communities and are committed to keeping village neighbourhoods sustainable. There's no substitute to working with people who believe in the cause.
Craig Felts is company secretary at Warwickshire Rural Housing Association
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