Affordable Housing in Cumbria

As increasing numbers of commuters, home workers and weekenders move from urban areas into the rural communities of England's Northwest, property prices rise disproportionately to salaries, making it difficult for local residents, and in particular younger people to find affordable housing.

A proposal has been written on behalf of Forestry Commission and the Rural Regeneration Company to apply the area-based PBRS method to an assessment of affordable housing need in Cumbria, and in particular to determine whether public or private woodlands may have a role to play in addressing some of that need. The eventual objective of the proposal is to inform investment in the creation of affordable, environmentally sound, new housing developments. The proposal has recently been profiled in the House of Lords.

Building on a baseline derived from the Indices of Deprivation 2004, the system uses specific data layers to help indicate where the need for affordable housing is greatest. Following this analysis, a data layer identifying environmental attributes that represent constraints to development (e.g. an area subject to a statutory ecological designation) or an opportunity (e.g. derelict, underused or neglected land adjacent to existing woodland) will also be applied. The assessment will also include a mobility modelling exercise to determine the accessibility of key employment hubs from potential new housing areas.