Most young country people ‘can’t afford a house there’

FEWER than half of young people in rural areas feel they can stay there, a charity has said, as it urged the Government to expand housebuilding in villages to make property more affordable.

A survey for the CPRE, a countryside charity, found 43 per cent of people aged 16 to 25 living in rural areas expected to stay there for the next five years, citing expensive housing and poor public transport for wanting to leave.

The CPRE said “the majority of young people born and raised in the countryside feel they can no longer afford to live there”, and choose instead to migrate to larger towns and cities.

Of those hoping to leave the countryside, 72 per cent said affordable housing was their biggest concern while fewer than one in five (18 per cent) think their future looks bright in a rural area.

Freya Davies, 18, from Flore, Northants, said: “There is no way, when I move out of my parents’ place, that I’ll be able to afford to stay in the village.

“I don’t want to move away but it’s just not affordable for me. All that will happen is that you end up with an ageing rural population. It is something that we’ve already started to get but as house prices go up in rural areas you just won’t have families, you won’t have young people being able to stay.”

Rightmove, a property listing aggregator, says the average home in Flore costs £422,464, compared with £270,018 in the nearest town, Northampton.