ABSTRACT
The papers presented in this special edition were all prepared, in an earlier form, for a session at the 2007 Royal Geographical Society (RGS) Conference in London supported by the Rural Geography and the Planning and Environment Research Groups. The aim of that session was to explore the changing context in which local actors in rural England (and elsewhere in the UK)—planning authorities, housing associations, and community groups, including those forming land trusts—are trying to supply additional housing in response to persistent need, or deal with continuing demand pressures. In particular, we were concerned with planning reform in England, post 2004, and the opportunities it might present to respond differently to housing challenges. The context is a familiar one: for many years, a variety of pressures on the rural housing stock—both demand pressures and the pressure generated by the unwillingness of successive governments to take seriously the issue of housing undersupply or ease the planning system’s presumption against most development in rural areas—have gone unchecked. Hoggart and Henderson (2005) have claimed that the defining characteristic of UK rural policy in recent times has been a ‘lack of conviction’ in responding to the changing ‘social composition of the countryside’, evidenced in declining housing affordability—for the worst-off sections of rural society—and increasing gentrification, at least since the 1970s.
