Planning consultancy Brooke Smith Planning has backed Government plans to increase the number of unwanted farm buildings being turned into affordable homes.

The Birmingham-based business says the move could help address the shortage of homes in the countryside particularly for younger people otherwise forced by economic circumstances to leave the places where they grew up. It also potentially offers additional income opportunities to land-owners.

The Government has formally invited councils to consider changing their policies to support residential conversion of unwanted farm buildings instead of insisting on employment re-use.

It followed a report earlier this year by the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee's into farming that highlighted the lack of affordable homes in the countryside and suggested that planning authorities in rural areas consider amending their policies.

Now the Department for Communities and Local Government is promoting "Home on the Farm" which encourages farmers and local councils to work together to secure the conversion of redundant and underused farm buildings to deliver affordable homes for local people. 

Will Charlton of Brooke Smith Planning said: "During the 1980s and 1990s barn conversions provided a source of housing for those who wanted to live 'out in the sticks' and gave struggling farms an extra source of income. However, in the late 1990s planning policy changed; it required barns to be converted to employment uses with the aim of encouraging rural employment uses such as craft workshops and offices. 

"This about-turn is very welcome. The changes in policy in the late 1990s have actually meant that because of their location, many traditional barns converted to employment uses, often at considerable cost, remain to let or for sale.

"There is a dire shortage of affordable housing in rural areas, which is critical to maintaining a living, working countryside. Housing is much more sustainable than providing offices in the middle of the countryside where everyone has to commute to them.

"The provision of affordable units by converting unwanted farm buildings will not only help farms diversify and provide other sources of income but will help those born and bred in our villages and hamlets to stay there rather than be forced to leave due to high property prices."