THE Country Land and Business Association today welcomes plans by the Government's Housing Corporation to build more than 10,000 homes in rural areas for local occupiers.

The plans, announced in the Government's Rural White Paper, will mean some 10,600 affordable houses by the years 2003/2004, 1,600 of those to be built in small villages.

Dorothy Fairburn, Yorkshire Regional director of the CLA, said she was "delighted" by the proposals and added: "We have campaigned for several years to ensure more homes are built in rural areas at prices locals can afford.

"Local young people are being driven out of rural areas and this has a terrible knock-on effect. Local shops have closed, services have been affected and even churches and schools have closed."