Last week, two members of our newly-formed Rural Housing Enabling (RHE) Team joined with other Rural Housing Enablers from across the country to learn more about the RHE process and how we can support communities, parish councils and local authorities to delivery more housing for local people.
The day was hosted by Action for Communities in Rural England, who are coordinating the national RHE programme, and covered a huge range of topics, delving in deeper to a few key areas and providing time for attendees to work through examples of scenarios together. With a mix of speakers representing different specialisms and stakeholders, it helped situate our role within the bigger picture and provided the opportunity for us to share successes and challenges with partners.
Just a quick overview of things covered:
- Rural Exception Sites – the purpose of these sites is to provide rural affordable housing that meets evidenced need. These sites are secured in perpetuity and are allocated to people with an approved local connection to the area.
- 10 steps to delivery – this sets out the process by which communities, registered providers, local authorities and rural housing enablers go about increasing affordable homes in rural areas.
- Supporting parish councils – as rural housing enablers, we seek to engage with parish councils as early as possible to support with independent and impartial advice, evidencing housing need, community consultations and site identification.
- Registered providers – we heard directly from a registered provider (often also known as housing associations) about their governance and purpose and the criteria of a viable rural affordable housing scheme.
- Estates & landowners – a large part of the housing delivery depends on finding a suitable site, which is where landowners come in! We discussed the value of land, the benefits for landowners and what to consider when selecting a site.
Throughout the day, we discussed engaging with communities to ensure parish councils and local people have the information they need to provide their thoughts and input into the process.
If you’d like to find out more about any of the above or the rural housing enabling services we offer, get in touch with our RHE Team at housing@actionhampshire.org
