Rural life is far from idyllic. One in three households is on a low income, people are moving away, services are on the decline and house prices are out of the average person's reach. This is the somewhat gloomy conclusion of the Commission for Rural Communities' latest State of the Countryside report. The 2005 report, the most detailed to date, will be fed into the work of the government's Affordable Rural Housing Commission. Reporting to DEFRA and the ODPM and chaired by former Channel 4 News' political editor Elinor Goodman, this august body will investigate how to improve access to housing in the countryside. But Goodman's team will not find much good news in the commission's report (see panel). It reveals that the quality of life in rural England is continuing to decline amid problems over housing, transport and access to services. It estimates that in smaller settlements the average house price is pound;330,000, or three times the average local income. In remote areas, around one in ten properties is a second or holiday home and one household in six earns less than pound;16,000 a year. An analysis of the Lake District shows that 45.8 per cent of the total stock comprises second or unoccupied homes.
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