Thanks to everyone who joined us on 6 November at our Rural Affordable Housing Conference.

This was a great success with some interesting and informative speakers raising many of the issues surrounding how homes are provided in rural communities.

These included:

Jo Lavis – Rural Affordable Housing Expert

Andrew Potter – Chief Executive of Hastoe Housing

Lois Lane – Research and Policy Advisor - CPRE

Co-presenters Beverley Harding-Rennie – Hampshire Alliance for Rural Affordable Housing (HARAH) and Karen Hillhouse - Hastoe Housing

Catherine Kirkham – Community Housing Officer –Action Hampshire.

There was some lively discussion in the room and plenty of questions raised for our panel of experts.

Some of the headlines from the conference included the fact that the average working person in Hampshire villages would need a 150% pay rise in order to buy a local home and one of the main impediments to building more Rural Affordable Housing is the high cost of land.

We need to work together to try and support Rural Affordable Housing ensuring our countryside communities can continue to thrive.  

For more information from the day, please see the below conference slides.