Shining a spotlight on rural housing with a focus on issues and aspirations for a living, working countryside.

#RuralHousingWeek

Rural Housing Week 11-17 July 2016

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Dear colleague

Rural Housing Week begins on Monday 11 July 2016 and signals the start of a short but hopefully well formed focus on all aspects of rural housing delivery, past present and future. This is the ideal opportunity for everybody involved in rural housing to come together, to reflect on what we have already achieved, to celebrate the great work that we are doing to sustain rural communities right now, and to share our future aspirations for a living, working countryside.

After a period of relative stability, in which housing associations have been able to build trust and long and lasting relationships with local authorities, parish councils and rural communities, times are changing. We need to change too, adapting to meet the challenges we all face.

The Government is very clear about its goal for more housing, especially extending the opportunities for home ownership and helping people move on from and not get ‘stuck’ in social housing. At the same time the focus is on driving down costs to the public purse and encouraging housing associations to be more efficient, sweating their assets to deliver more for less. Changes resulting from welfare reforms, the passage of the Housing and Planning Bill through Parliament and amendments to the National Planning Framework have proved controversial, providing a sharper focus on rural housing issues than at any time in the recent past.

Over the last 12 months, there has been a broad and determined debate about how, in the face of all these challenges, affordable rural homes can be retained and communities sustained in the future through the delivery of new homes to meet local needs. It has never been truer to say that ‘one size doesn’t fit all.’ Just as housing associations have always innovated and worked alongside local communities through seemingly insurmountable problems, we need to do so again.

It is fair to say that everyone involved in providing affordable rural homes is passionate about what they do and is determined to make an ongoing contribution to a vibrant and sustainable countryside. However, we also need to show leadership to help shape the future, for both ourselves and for our rural communities. As members of the Rural Housing Alliance, and beyond, we are united in coming together to showcase the very best of what we stand for and have achieved, while sharing our concerns and working towards future solutions.

The Rural Housing Alliance and Rural Services Network are once again collaborating with the National Housing Federation, to provide a rural housing conference and to promote the issues in support of affordable rural housing through Rural Housing Week. All that remains now is for you to help make it a success.

You may wish to adapt the press releases and articles produced in the run up to, and during, Rural Housing Week. Please do tailor them to include details about your own organisation’s services and activities for use in your publications, or for issuing to media outlets in your own area.

Please also find details of our social media plans for the week in this pack. We would urge you to help us make a splash online via Twitter (using the #RuralHousingWeek hashtag) and through your other social media channels, to spread the word to as wide an audience as possible.

Having your local MPs aware and engaged can help you build support for your work. So we have also included guidance in the pack, aimed at helping you reach out to your local MPs.

Please make good use of the templates and other resources in this pack to get the ball rolling.

Jake Berriman

Chair, Rural Housing AllianceChief Executive, Shropshire Housing Group

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What is it? Rural Housing Week is focused on innovation this year, offering an opportunity to showcase housing associations’ creativity, as well as the crucial role affordable housing plays in helping to maintain small rural communities. This is an opportunity to give local decision makers a first-hand look at successful rural developments and highlight the benefits they bring to local people.

Not only are housing associations helping local people to continue to live in the same area as their friends and family, they are also helping to preserve the economic viability of rural communities, by ensuring continued demand for key services such as shops, schools, post offices and pubs.

Housing associations provide a place to live for local people who might otherwise be priced out of their home area. Just a small number of affordable homes can also benefit the whole community and help to sustain local businesses and services.

When is it?This year’s Rural Housing Week will run throughout England between Monday 11 July and Sunday 17 July 2016. This pack offers some suggestions for some of the events and other activities you may like to organise to help highlight rural housing issues and your positive impact in rural communities.

How do you get involved?There are lots of ways in which you can promote the importance of affordable rural housing and the wider local benefits. You may want to organise an event for staff and residents and invite relevant stakeholders along. Or you could set up a meeting with an important external partner. Setting up compelling web or social media content (blogs, videos etc) can spread the word further, as can sending a press release to local media. There are more ideas on the next page.

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What can we do?Here are a few quick and easy ideas to give you some inspiration and help with your planning for Rural Housing Week:

• Organise a celebration event (it doesn’t have to be huge) and invite relevant staff, residents and any relevant external stakeholders.

• Check diaries for any events or meetings already taking place from 11-17 July that can be used to get the key messages across, promote your innovation and success in a rural community, or help raise the profile of a particular development or project.

• Write to your MP, local councillors, or other external partners, outlining the issues that affect their constituents and your role in addressing them. The key facts on page 5 may help provide some background context, alongside some of the data in the most recent Home Truths report for your area.

• Write an article or blog to highlight the issues and promote successful schemes. Consider getting input from staff and local residents to some of this content to add the human interest angle. Video vox pops posted on YouTube and added to your website might be a good way to do this, along with copy in resident newsletters, staff e-bulletins, or on your website and intranet pages.

• Post a case study on your website and use social media to promote it with the #RuralHousingWeek hashtag.

• Issue a press release highlighting the issues and promoting a recent development that has been successful in addressing them – ideally incorporating a case study which you can also post online.

• Change your corporate email signature to:

“[choose and insert one key fact from page 5 and include the Rural Housing Week logo] [insert one sentence about the impact of one of your projects that responds to the issues in your area] Join us and housing associations throughout the country in celebrating Rural Housing Week (11-17 July 2016).”

Please do tell us what you’re doingFrom now until just after Rural Housing Week, please do let us know how you are celebrating. We’d love to hear from as many housing associations as possible, to help us build up a picture of activity across the country.

We’d be particularly interested to hear about any activity involving MPs. Please forward details of any events and other activities to Neil Cox in the Federation’s Public Affairs team.

Key facts:

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1 Census 2011.

2 National Housing Federation analysis of 2012-based Department for Communities and Local Government household projections.

3 National Housing Federation analysis of Town and Country Planning Association estimates of housing need and Department for Communities and Local Government housebuilding figures.

Sources:

More than 1 in 5 of England’s population live

in rural areas1

In some rural areas only one fifth of the

homes we need have been built over the last

five years3

By 2037, the number of working age households in England is

projected to fall by 2% in rural areas, while increasing in urban

areas by nearly 10%2

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As well as being an opportunity to celebrate innovation and successful rural schemes, Rural Housing Week is your chance to showcase the vital role that your organisation plays in rural communities to local MPs and councillors. It’s a great opportunity to start a new relationship with these key stakeholders, or to improve an existing one.

Rural Housing Week is also a good time to act on the findings from the National Housing Federation’s recent audit of politicians’ perceptions. We found that the more politicians interact with the sector, the more they value us. They want to see our vision, innovation and ambition, so political allies are there to be won. Rural Housing Week is an ideal opportunity to start repositioning the sector to ensure that housing associations are seen as trusted partners of those who have influence over our future.

How are you innovating to help meet rural housing need?Housing associations in rural areas across the country are stretching every sinew to deliver the homes local people need. Rural Housing Week offers a perfect opportunity to celebrate and showcase this important work to your local MP or councillor, demonstrating what your organisation and the wider sector are doing for rural communities.

When writing to your local politician, think about how you could showcase your organisation’s work to:

• Build new homes of all tenure: Perhaps you could show your local politician around a new development, or introduce them to a resident who has just moved in to a new scheme of any tenure.

• Innovate to do more: Delivering new homes in rural areas is often full of difficulties and delays. Showcasing how you have innovated or done things differently to overcome this will demonstrate how you are working hard to deliver what the local area needs, and also delivering on that politician’s priorities.

• Help local people: This could be an opportunity to showcase the schemes and services you provide to help people in the local area. Are you providing shared ownership to help young people take their first step on the housing ladder? Or taking on apprentices to provide local people with new job opportunities?

Once you have decided what you’ll showcase, make contact. Here are a few tips on the best approach. If you have never contacted your MP before, or want some tips and tricks, have a look at the advice on our website.

The personal touchWhether an MP, councillor, or other partner – find out what their political interests are and how you can help them further these. Do they have a particular interest in home ownership, business, employment and skills, green issues or health and wellbeing that you can link to?

Tell local politicians about your work

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Be authoritative and helpfulBe a good source of information and advice – MPs and councillors are generalists and have a lot of issues to deal with, so they appreciate having someone they can go to with questions and get authoritative answers. If they ask you for your help or advice, be prepared to give it.

Be polite but persistentMPs and councillors are busy people and may not be able to accept your invitations due to prior diary commitments. Don’t give up. Invite them to something else and try something new. Make it clear you are keen to work with them.

Bear in mind MPs are usually only in their constituencies on Fridays, weekends and when Parliament is not sitting. The rest of the time they have to be in Westminster.

Cultivate their staffMPs’ staff are very influential and if you are on friendly terms they can be very helpful. They tend to work in small close-knit teams, and if they think it will be in their MP’s interests to do something, they are likely to bring it to the MP’s attention. Council staff are also important contacts.

Keep up the good workDon’t forget that you’re building a long-term relationship, so try to do two things:

• Keep in touch: Consider sending a regular personalised email or a letter to your MPs and councillors, updating them on relevant new things that you are doing in their constituency or council area.

• Respond promptly: If you are contacted by any MP or councillor, please respond quickly. Someone senior in your organisation should get back to them – initially with a holding letter or email, acknowledging their contact, followed by a full response as soon as possible. It might seem obvious but not everyone does it, so make sure that you have an agreed process for responding to MP and councillors’ correspondence.

Talk to usFinally, whatever you end up doing, please let us know about it.

We’re always working hard to speak to MPs and support our members’ work, and any information from you about your relationships with your local politicians helps us do this.

We can also help with briefings for your senior staff ahead of their meetings, or with follow up briefings for the MPs themselves.

Please contact Neil Cox in the Public Affairs team on 020 7067 1143 or email neil.cox@housing.org.uk for more information.

Help them look goodMPs and councillors want to raise their profile, so give them an interesting or eye-catching opportunity to do so. They will expect to be asked to do something, whether it’s making a speech at an event, cutting a ribbon, or showing support for an initiative. Most will be happy to provide a supportive quote to the local press, for example, or to write to another agency on your behalf. So, if you want them to do something, be clear about how they can help.

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Help spread the word far and wide

Let’s get trending #RuralHousingWeekWe’d love to have as many people as possible tweeting and sharing in the run up to, and during the week, using #RuralHousingWeek. Whether it’s to promote your event, showcase your organisation’s great work, tweeting your MP or just adding your voice to the campaign, please do get involved in the rural housing debate online.

Join our 2016 rural housing conferenceWe are holding a rural housing conference on Tuesday 12 July in London, offering an opportunity to get involved in the debate around rural housing, hear from sector experts and network with leaders from the rural housing sector. Workshops on the day will cover:

• developing in rural areas

• community involvement in rural areas

• modern construction

• young people in rural communities.

For more information or to book your place, download the brochure and booking form.

Rural housing case studies needed for mediaDuring Rural Housing Week we will need case studies of real people who can talk to the media about the housing crisis in rural areas from their own personal perspective. Great examples would be:

• young families priced out of their community

• older people whose families have had to move out of the area

• families who have benefitted from a social home in a rural area

• communities which are feeling the impacts of a lack of affordable housing

• areas which have benefitted from affordable housing, despite initial local resistance.

Please contact the Federation’s PR team if you can assist: prteam@housing.org.uk or 020 7067 1146.

#RuralHousingWeekwww.housing.org.uk/ruralweek

11 - 17 July 2016

The National Housing Federation is the voice of affordable housing in England. We believe that everyone should have the home they need at a price they can afford. That’s why we represent the work of housing associations and campaign for better housing.

Our members provide two and a half million homes for more than five million people. And each year they invest in a diverse range of neighbourhood projects that help create strong, vibrant communities.

National Housing FederationLion Court 25 Procter Street, London WC1V 6NYTel: 020 7067 1010www.housing.org.uk/ruralweek

Contact: Monica Burns, External Affairs ManagerEmail: monica.burns@housing.org.ukTel: 07720 038448

For more information about Rural Housing Week, visitwww.housing.org.uk/ruralweek