| | CPRE GLOUCESTERSHIRE BRANCH
| Policy Statement Rural Communities |
While Gloucestershire has two medium sized urban areas (Gloucester and Cheltenham) and about 20 market towns it is one of the most rural counties in England with around 50% of the population living in small villages. These villages are in danger of becoming unbalanced towards the commuting executive, retirees and second home owners. The average age of the village population is higher than in the rest of Gloucestershire. While retirees can and do play important roles in maintaining village life, it is desirable that villages include a reasonable proportion of young people who work in the area. With the decline in employment in agriculture there has been a steady drift of young people away from rural areas. Loss of services and the rising cost of housing deters them from returning.
We believe that living and working communities care about their environment and are the best foundation for protecting it.
To stabilise and reverse the trend means an integrated approach including:
- promoting suitable new employment opportunities in the countryside. In part this means supporting the creation of small business centres in for instance redundant farm buildings or even purpose built in appropriate non- visually damaging locations, provided that the local roads can reasonably take the increased traffic which the activities would generate;
- accepting some exception sites for affordable houses (based on need) while vigorously opposing further new executive housing both at the plan policy stage and on individual applications;
- supporting the retention/ introduction of new services. While village communities are created by the people who live there is much evidence that the existence of primary schools, local shops, pubs and good local transport foster community interaction.
On schools there is no evidence to support the assertion that new housing (except on a massive basis) will safeguard primary schools. The issues of economics from falling school roles, matching places to needs, denominational preferences and educational standards are not our concern but we do need to have regard to and understand them. However we should remind educational authorities wherever and whenever appropriate, that primary schools lie at the heart of [those] communities and their removal could have much wider implications for those communities and the countryside generally. Where a decision to close is inevitable and the school building is both architecturally and historically important then CPRE should campaign that every effort should be made to retain the school building for community use e.g. as a village hall or sub-divided into affordable homes for local people.
In many of the villages of Gloucestershire the concentration of second homes is already very high and endangers the maintenance of living and working communities. We therefore support the removal of the 50% council tax rebate and would be in favour of restriction on resale to give priority to more full time residents in those areas most affected.
November 2006