Enterprise Nation

Oh, hooray, hooray. A report just out called ‘Living Working Countryside’ authored by Matthew Taylor, MP for Truro, calls on the PM to adopt a more flexible approach to work-based extensions to homes. The report is seriously good reading for any home business operating in a rural area.

Matthew is the man

I raise my morning cup of tea in deference to Matthew Taylor MP. He’s done us home businesses proud.

Matthew has just written a report called 'Living Working Countryside’ that is a dreamy pleasure for homeworkers.

Here’s a few extracts:

"Along with affordable village homes for local people and a transformation of the way market towns are developed, it also proposes that planning rules facilitate a broader range of rural business and boost home-based working in order to increase the wages of those people working in rural areas, which currently lag 20% behind their urban counterparts."

It proposes:

• New policy should support a more flexible approach to work-based extensions to homes to encourage home-based working and in particular start up businesses in the countryside to grow and take on their first employees
• An exemplar programme to bring forward new rural business hubs and live/work clusters to support and encourage small rural businesses
• Housing Associations should end bans on people setting up a home-based business in social and affordable homes.

I do not often read these government reports with relish but this one was a joy. Let’s hope the PM listens to what the author is recommending. – Emma Jones

• Living Working Countryside Report