Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of using rural exception sites for delivering affordable housing.

The National Planning Policy Framework expects local planning authorities to support opportunities to bring forward rural exception sites to provide affordable housing to meet identified local needs.

In the government response to the revised NPPF published on 12 December 2024, we committed to give further consideration to how we can better support rural affordable housing, including through rural exception sites, as part of our work to produce a set of national policies for decision making in 2025.