Making devolution work for affordable rural housing: our new toolkit for rural communities

Devolution will decide where homes are built for a generation. Our free toolkit helps parish councils, community groups, councillors and advocates make sure rural communities are not left behind — launching for Rural Housing Week 2026. 

Rural England faces a choice: wait and watch, or get organised 

Devolution is changing how housing decisions are made. The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 has handed significant housing and planning powers to new strategic authorities and, in many areas, directly elected mayors. Each authority must now produce a Spatial Development Strategy — a high-level plan with a minimum 20-year horizon that will shape where investment goes for decades. 

This is the single most important planning document local communities can influence. If a Spatial Development Strategy does not explicitly recognise rural housing need, villages and market towns will struggle to get a fair share of investment. This is not about large-scale growth imposed on rural places. It is about small-scale development, the right homes in the right place, helping young people stay in the communities they grew up in and keeping local services and businesses viable. 

The rural gap in numbers 

• 300,000+ people on rural social housing waiting lists in England. 

• 8.8x — rural house prices to local lower-quartile earnings. 

• +73% rise in rural homelessness since 2018. 

• -32% fall in social housing construction since 2012. 

• 50% higher affordable housing need in rural areas than in urban areas outside London. 

• 20 years — the minimum horizon proposed for every Spatial Development Strategy. 

What’s in the toolkit 

Written for parish councils, community groups, rural councillors and housing advocates, the toolkit is designed to be used again and again as devolution unfolds. Inside you will find: 

• A plain-English primer on devolution and what the new strategic authorities mean for rural housing; 

• Who to engage with, and when — from mayors and housing directors to Rural Housing Enablers and your MP; 

• Five practical actions communities can take, whatever their capacity; 

• Rural checklists to test whether your local Spatial Development Strategy is genuinely “rural proofed”; 

• Ready-to-use templates — letters to your strategic authority and MP, a council motion, a briefing note and social media copy; and 

• A glossary, a contacts list and further reading. 

Built on the evidence 

The toolkit builds on independent research, English Devolution and Rural Affordable Housing: Opportunities and Risks, published in December 2025 by the Countryside and Community Research Institute at the University of Gloucestershire and commissioned by the Rural Housing Network. That research found devolution offers both opportunity and risk for rural housing — and warned of a “postcode lottery” unless rural needs are deliberately written into devolution plans. The toolkit turns its recommendations into practical action. 

Download the toolkit 

It is free to download and free to share. If it is useful, please pass it to your parish council, your community group and your local councillors — and tell us how you are using it. 

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