Rural election issues: Housing

In the run up to the General Election Farmers Weekly looks at five issues on minds of rural voters. Here farm secretary Anna Blythe discusses housing.

Anna Blythe
Farm secretary,
Long Itchington, Warwickshire

“I need a government that will help me get on the housing ladder.

I live and work on the farm so I need somewhere close. While there are lots of properties on the market, nothing is at a sensible price.

Even with a deposit there isn’t the relevant housing stock that I could buy and any agricultural land that comes onto the market is just snapped up by developers.

There are schemes where if a developer wanted to build houses then a percentage of them have to be affordable. I want whoever I vote for to make sure those affordable ones are made available to rural people if the development was in a strong rural community.

I also want the next government to do something about the planning system. If farmers’ sons or daughters put in planning consent for a barn on the farm they don’t seem to get it accepted. They are first-time buyers too – making it easier to get planning consent would take them off the affordable housing waiting lists.”

• For more election issues click here.