Rural life is under threat of disappearing unless more affordable homes are built, claims a leading housing body.
The National Housing Federation’s (NHF) Rural Life Monitor found that shuttering schools, post offices and pubs could be a sign that life in the country may be drastically altered in the future.
The report discovers that 52 rural schools – roughly one a month – closed in the last five years.
Make no mistake, rural life as we know it is disappearing fast.
Since 2011, 81 post offices met their demise alongside the loss of 1,365 pubs in the last four years, leading to diminishing village populations that could see almost half of all rural households have an average age of 65 or over by 2039 as young people flock to the cities.
And they are already doing so in their droves, claims the Federation, with a lack of new affordable housing behind the issue. The NHF is calling for 40,000 new affordable homes to be built every year to tackle the problem.
Last year, the cheapest homes in rural areas were more than eight times the income of typical first-time buyers, considerably higher than in urban areas.