ABSTRACT
Local housing authorities, owner-occupiers, private and public tenants – indeed all the users and suppliers of rural housing – operate within a framework of national legislation and practice. Information on the stock of rural housing presented in reports of survey is inevitably based upon published data rather than special surveys, although these have been undertaken by some planning authorities. Under the development plan system stemming from the report of the Planning Advisory Group and the 1968 and 1971 Town and Country Planning Acts, the prime responsibility for housing policy is vested in district councils, which, as local housing authorities, provide public housing and control the scale and location of private residential development through local plans and development control. The chapter considers some aspects of national housing policy which particularly affect rural areas. Housing Investment Programmes were introduced, in part at least, as an attempt to simplify and co-ordinate the task of financing and planning investment in housing.
