Affordable Housing

Affordable Housing at Crosby Ravensworth

In many Cumbrian villages, residents cannot afford to buy or rent homes, so they leave, taking their families and their businesses with them. As a result, shops, pubs, and primary schools close.  And villages become increasingly reserves for the elderly, whose children and grandchildren live in distant towns. We talk about this all the time. But what do we do about it? How do we produce houses which the young can afford to rent or buy? The answer can’t be simply to allow developers to swamp villages by building a hundred full-price houses to subsidise a dozen affordable homes, nor to build new estates of social houses in which locals are reluctant to live. Is it possible instead to build affordable houses without making villages uglier and bigger, and without alienating the residents?

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cumbrian volunteers speak up for the big society

Volunteers speak up for Big Society By Clare Lissaman BBC News, Wednesday 9th February 2011   Months before Prime Minister David Cameron launched his Big Society initiative with the aim of empowering local communities, villagers in Cumbria were making plans to build their own homes. A survey identifying the need for 23 affordable homes in […]