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<p>This Government believes that meeting the housing needs of rural communities is
important and nearly 165,000 affordable homes have been provided in rural local authorities
in England between April 2010 and March 2019.</p><p><br> We are investing £12.2 billion
in affordable housing over 5 years from next year (2021-2026). This represents the
highest single funding commitment to affordable housing in a decade. <br> <br> This
investment includes the new £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme which will be
delivered over 5 years from next year (2021-2026), providing up to 180,000 new homes
across the country, should economic conditions allow. Homes England’s funding prospectus
for this supports the delivery of rural housing, with the commitment of 10% of the
housing delivered to be in settlements with a population fewer than 3,000. Furthermore,
Homes England has dedicated rural housing champions in each of their operating areas
and they remain active across the rural housing sector.</p><p>The department collects
annual data on new affordable housing supply but does not collect all the data required
on disposals of affordable housing that would allow to calculate the net change in
affordable housing in rural areas.</p><p>The latest available official statistics
on new affordable housing supply are for 2018-19. The publication of the statistics
for 2019-20 has been provisionally pre-announced for 3<sup>rd</sup> December 2020.</p>
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