This week is Rural Housing Week 2023, an annual campaign highlighting the importance of housing associations for rural communities. The theme for Rural Housing Week 2023 is 'building a better future for rural communities.'

Rural areas in England suffer from a shortage of affordable housing. Rural Housing Week 2023 is about how we can address these shortages, help rural communities survive and thrive, and bring and keep families together.

Rural housing is in more demand than ever, and with the rise in house prices, those on lower incomes are being priced out of the communities in which they grew up, where their family live and where their children go to school. Some villages are becoming ghost towns due to second-home ownership and holiday homes. Building affordable housing is vital to help keep rural communities thriving and prevent local people and families from being forced to move away.

This week we are joining housing associations and partner organisations to highlight rural housing issues and how we can work together to deliver high-quality, low-cost housing for local people.

We currently have sites across several rural settings, including our nearly completed housing development in Weeton, Lancashire, of 27 new affordable homes in partnership with Concert Homes.  All of these homes will allow low-income households to remain in the communities they live in or choose to live in without feeling forced into towns and cities because of cost. 

We are also ensuring that the new homes we are developing are affordable to heat and run, with all our properties built to minimum energy efficiency of EPC B. 

We are committed to providing homes for local people and helping to keep communities thriving. 

More information on Rural Housing Week is available on the campaign page.