Enabling the delivery of rural affordable housing in England

In response to projections of future housing demand, public planning authorities allocate land for development within local plans. The process is top-down and public-sector led, corralling land value to selected locations in support of the infrastructure investments needed to progress development. But in rural areas in England, an unplanned, exceptional process of selecting land for affordable housing has existed since 1991. ‘Rural Exception Sites’ (RES) are not allocated in local plans and they are not (exclusively) public-sector led. Rather, they involve the granting of exceptional permissions for affordable housing on non-housing land. RES emerge from a devolved approach, with the public sector ceding power to non-state actors and to voluntary housing enablers. The rationale of this partnership process is to keep land outside of the allocation process, hence keeping it affordable for non-market housing that meets communities' needs. This paper examines the way that RES disrupt land market and planning processes in order to deliver the homes that rural communities need.