One of the most revealing tactics for addressing housing supply pressures in rural areas is the selective targeting of ‘local’ needs. It involves giving priority access to ‘local people’ – households with a ‘local connection’ or those working locally – for new homes, whether these are for rent, for shared ownership or for outright purchase. Priority access to specified groups is often a requirement, written into a planning obligation, where affordable housing is delivered through an exceptional permission or secured as a planning gain within a private development. In some instances, occupancy conditions have been attached to all new housing developments in an area. The local planning authority, which has ‘enabled’ the scheme through its development control function, has a responsibility to ensure that housing for local need fulfils this purpose in perpetuity, or may believe that – because land supply in the next planning period will be limited – all new housing should serve the local market.

The tactic is revealing for two reasons: first, because it highlights the indirect nature of the public response to the need for affordable housing; and, second, because it shows how authorities attempt to address the specific needs of a part of the housing market without increasing general supply and thereby mustering local support for development. Because of broader planning constraints, and the external interest that new market homes could attract, authorities will not release land for general development, but instead restrict the occupancy of a high proportion of the housing they do permit. This constraint on general supply serves to protect the rural resource, but also focuses external market interest on existing properties. The dilemma is not an easy one to solve and government has long resisted calls to build new public housing on land especially earmarked for that purpose (ACRE, 1988), though opportunities may arise to provide homes for local need, or for key workers, on land owned by a local authority or another public body.

There are several key areas of concern relating to this topic. First, there is the inevitable controversy that surrounds giving priority to ‘local people’. Second, the effectiveness of the tactic, noted above, is also keenly disputed. Third, if used too widely and readily, giving priority to local needs can impact on the general supply of housing and have a range of potentially undesirable consequences. Fourth, who should be given priority?