Rural Housing Alliance

The Rural Housing Alliance, which works in partnership with the Rural Services Network and National Housing Federation, is a group of housing associations that develop and manage affordable homes in rural areas across England

Our aim is to work together to share innovation, good practice and ideas, advocate the need for affordable rural homes and provide a unified voice on key issues. Additionally, we enable rural housing associations to compare and learn from each others’ work in areas such as design and sustainability.

The Rural Housing Alliance meets four times per year, and helps provide a single, clear and collective voice for housing associations’ lobbying and influencing on rural housing. The RHA also has a strong presence during Rural Housing Week.

Membership of the Rural Housing Alliance is varied, but each Member has agreed to uphold a consistent pledge, principally drafted around providing affordable rural homes for local people while offering a set of guarantees to rural communities where Members work.

Our pledge is to ensure there are high quality, low carbon affordable homes with great services in rural areas.  We will:

• Work closely with local communities and Parish Councils to find the best solution to meet identified housing needs
• Ensure that homes are occupied by people who have a local connection or contribute to the sustainability and inclusivity of the village and rural area
• Ensure that affordable homes always remain affordable
• Build sensitively designed, high quality homes which contribute to the beauty of an area
• Build to high environmental standards which help residents and communities reduce their carbon impact and be more sustainable and resilient
• Provide locally sensitive, high quality services to our residents and their communities
• Always listen and respond positively to our customers and the local community
• Delivering our Pledge will create and maintain positive local rural communities as real Places to live and thrive in.

The Rural Housing Alliance is made up of housing association members who are supported by the Rural Services Network, in collaboration with the National Housing Federation.  Key individuals from the Rural Housing Alliance include:

	Kate Smith, Chair, Rural Housing Alliance Kate has a wealth of experience gained from 15 years at executive level in the social housing sector, with organisations of scale, complexity and ambition. Before joining Connexus Kate worked for national housing and care provider Anchor, where she was group executive director of business services for five years.Kate has held executive leadership positions at Southern Housing and bpha, as well as a number of non-executive positions.
	Chris Fawcett, Vice Chair, Rural Housing Alliance Chris works in the least densely populated district of England, the Northern Lakes – Cumbria. He has enjoyed sixteen years’ working in social housing with experience at an executive and non-executive level having also chaired a board. He also leads the Rural Housing Enabler Service for Cumbria and is happy to help promote the great work of the rural housing alliance and their members.
	Andy Dean, Administrator, Rural Housing Alliance Andy provides secretariat services to the Rural Housing Alliance on behalf of its partnership with the Rural Services Network where he is a Consultant, which involves leading on housing issues.
	Patrick Merton-Jones, Rural Lead, Rural Housing Alliance Patrick is the External Affairs Manager at the National Housing Federation, working with members and external stakeholders on rural affairs, raising public and political awareness of the rural housing crisis and the actions needed to tackle it. Another supporter of affordable rural homes is HRH The Princess Royal, who has helped the Rural Housing Alliance raise awareness of the need for village homes that benefit local people by speaking at and attending a range of events.  To find out more, download HRH The Princess Royal’s message in support of the Rural Housing Alliance.

The Rural Services Network and partners provide a wealth of resources on rural affordable housing. To find out more click on the images and links below:

	There’s a Will – Here’s the Way
	A Design Guide: Building Tomorrow’s Rural Communities
	A Manifesto for Delivering Thriving Rural Communities Through Affordable Housing
	Rural recovery and revitalisation – the economic and fiscal case for investing in rural affordable housing to drive post pandemic recovery
	Delivering for All: A Roadmap for Rural Prosperity
	Rural Homelessness Counts Coalition
	Rural Homelessness Research Report
	Parish Councillors’ Guide to Rural Affordable Housing

View the latest content across many of the housing related services by clicking on the relevant button below:

To find out more about membership of the Rural Services Network and the many benefits on offer to Rural Housing Associations including promotion of your organisation, networking opportunities, rural housing news direct to your inbox and access to research and events contact Nadine.Trout@sparse.gov.uk

For any press queries relating to the work of the Rural Services Network and Rural Housing Alliance please contact press@sparse.gov.uk Note, we are happy to provide live interviews and or quotes.