Bishop of Exeter calls on Government to address rural and coastal housing crisis

Bishop of Exeter calls on Government to address rural and coastal housing crisis

The Bishop of Exeter says that “systemic change” is needed to tackle the housing crisis in rural and coastal communities.

Opening a House of Lords debate on housing recently, the Rt. Rev’d Robert Atwell said: “The demand for social housing in rural areas is growing at ten times the rate of that in towns and cities.

“In Devon, with the current rate of net additions to affordable housing stock, even if housing waiting lists closed tomorrow, it would still take over 32 years to clear the backlog.”

Bishop Robert also said that the number of rental properties available in the county had fallen below 700.

His speech came on the same day as a speech by the Government’s Housing Secretary, Michael Gove, which set out reforms to tackle the housing crisis focusing on urban, rather than rural areas.

The Diocese of Exeter covers the county of Devon and is one of the largest rural dioceses in England. With two coastlines, it also has a number of coastal communities.

The bishop accused the government of falling “woefully short” of its own affordable housing targets.

He also said the Church had a “significant part to play,” as highlighted in the ‘Coming Home’ report by the Archbishop’s Commission on Housing.

The Bishop said in his speech: “We are all familiar with the problems of affordability caused by the chronic housing shortage that is having a disproportionate impact on people with low incomes. The Government, as it has admitted today, is falling woefully short of its own homebuilding target and, as a result, people are suffering because they have nowhere to call home, their health is diminished, and community spirit is being eroded.

“In coastal and rural areas, particularly in tourist hotspots, the situation is compounded by second home ownership, holiday rentals and AirBnb lettings. In Devon and Cornwall, there is a huge gap between properties listed for short-term holiday lets and long-term rentals. Last year ITV highlighted the fact that in the whole of Devon there were only 936 properties to rent compared with more than 15,700 holiday lets, sixteen times as many. Re-visiting the same data ITV used last year, the ratio has risen to twenty-two times the number, with available rental properties having slumped to under 700. The situation in Cornwall, as no doubt Lord Teverson will confirm, is even worse with a staggering ratio of over ninety times as many holiday lets. Only 208 rental properties are listed compared to more than 19,000 holiday lets.

“A report from the Universities of Kent and Southampton notes the dramatic rise of homelessness in rural areas with a 24% increase in rough sleeping in the last year alone.[1] Rural and coastal areas often fall through the cracks in our national data gathering, but research by the Rural Services Network shows that if our rural communities were aggregated into one region, then its need for ‘levelling up’ would be greater than any other region in the UK. It is why the current housing crisis merits action, not just sympathy.

He concluded: “Without partnership and systemic change, the spiral of deprivation will become more acute.

“We need cross-departmental working and cross-party agreement to forge a coherent long-term strategy that will secure good housing and the flourishing of our rural and coastal communities.”

Coming Home report: https://www.churchofengland.org/about/archbishops-commissions/housing-church-and-community/about-coming-home

[1] https://englishrural.org.uk/rural-homelessness-counts/