A review of planning in rural areas by MP Matthew Taylor, commissioned by prime minister Gordon Brown, has called for a radical shake up of the planning system to ensure that communities have a healthy and sustainable future. Taylor, MP for Truro and St Austell, who conducted the study into how land use and planning could better develop rural areas and business and deliver affordable housing, published his findings on July 23. He asserted that a shortage of housing on a long term scale was damaging the progress of rural communities and the planning system would need to be revised to deliver sustainable communities. <br><br>The review’s main recommendations were the creation of “enterprise hubs” to drive forward new jobs and affordable housing, neighbourhood extensions to market towns, rural exception sites for local village people, and a trial restriction of second homes in national parks. <br><br>Villages and hamlets faced a choice, Taylor commented – become exclusive dwellings of the rich or retired, or areas where local people could remain and work: “In many cases just a handful of well designed homes, kept affordable in perpetuity for local people, will make all the difference for the sustainability of the community and its …