Sustainable Rural Settlements and Rural Housing

LUC has a strong interest in enabling rural towns and villages to be more sustainable. Planning and housing policy are two crucial instruments for pursuing this. We have used a range of sources of data and techniques, including mapping commuting patterns and use of services on GIS, to uncover how contemporary rural settlements function and interrelate. This enables policy to be far more effective as it starts with a detailed picture of how a rural area actually works, socially and economically, and thus is better equipped to pick out a more sustainable future for it.

"LUC’s work on planning and housing for rural settlements has been quite distinctive in taking a detailed functional perspective. This sort of work is of direct assistance in building the rural evidence bases asked for in PPS7."

Recent work includes

Extent and Impacts of Rural Housing Needs
Defra, 2004/05
Sub-consultants to Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research

Rural Housing in the West Midlands
West Midlands Rural Housing Network, 2004/05
With Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research

Functional Analysis of Settlements in the South West Region
South West Regional Assembly, 2004/05
Sub-consultants to Atlantic Consultants

The Cornwall Towns Study
Cornwall County Council, 2004/05

High Weald Sustainable Settlements Project
Countryside Agency and High Weald AONB Unit, 2004/05

The Identification of Service Centres in the East Riding of Yorkshire
Countryside Agency and East Riding Council, 2004/05

Essential Dwellings in the Open Countryside – Development of revised policy
National Assembly for Wales, 2003 /05
With Kernon Countryside Consultants and the Institute of Rural Sciences, University of Wales, Aberystwyth

Rural Planning in the South West - Research to inform the new Regional Spatial Strategy, advising on a more sophisticated, function-based approach to rural planning in the region
South West Regional Assembly, 2004

The Role of Rural Settlements as Service Centres
Countryside Agency, 2003
With Emma Delow

Setting-up One Stop Shops – A good practice handbook on linking services in market towns
For the Countryside Agency, 2003

Market Towns and the Statutory Planning System – guidance for local authorities and market town partnerships
Countryside Agency, 2003

Low Impact Development – Planning policy and practice
Countryside Council for Wales, 2001/02