I agree with Simon Jenkins’s overall message that England’s rural communities desperately need low-cost and affordable homes to rent and buy ( David Cameron failed to foist new houses on rural areas. Why does Keir Starmer think he’ll succeed?, 18 July ). But beyond that he seems to dive down a whole string of rabbit holes, such as 80% of British students expecting “the luxury of living away from home” – the implication being that students should not be enabled to make a first move towards independence.
And then he rails against onshore wind turbines. To say that the Conservatives failed to foist new houses on rural areas is wrong. It was their national planning policy framework that unleashed rampant executive housebuilding of four- and five-bedroom homes on villages and towns across rural England.
What rural communities crave are homes for those on low wages, first-time buyers, properties for old crocks like me to downsize into, and flats for single people to own or rent. For a start, the exemption enjoyed by housebuilders such that they don’t need to provide a percentage of affordable homes if a market housing development falls below a certain number of units, should be scrapped. What our rural communities would support are homes suited to local conditions, as shown in local housing needs surveys and community neighbourhood plans.
As the philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville stated in 1835, the “strength of free peoples resides in the local community. Local inst.