FT article September 24 states ‘Worker shortages pose risk to food supply’, which highlights dairy farmers quitting the industry.
Herdspeople need to live near their work, but rural homes are invariably occupied by retirees or become holiday homes.
Affordable rural homes can be built on Rural Exception Sites, but Local Authorities often require Housing Needs Surveys to prove a need.
These surveys cost a lot of money and only go to families who already have a home! Local authorities refuse to recognise numbers on their Housing Waiting list as proving need.
Only three parishes in the whole of East Devon have had such a survey in the last two years, so it is not a surprise that affordable rural homes are not being built.
There are over 5,000 families in East Devon who are desperate for a home, but our council refuses to recognise them as being in need.
The problem is the NIMBYs. Councillors want their vote and they are more important than the desperate families in need of a home.
Robert Persey
Honiton
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