We all hear stories about young people leaving the Pembrokeshire countryside because properties are way beyond their price range.

What some of us might not appreciate though, is that a dearth of affordable housing can prevent rural-based businesses from expanding. A business can't grow if there is nowhere for staff to live.

It is good news therefore that research commissioned by the National Assembly has recommended that new development should be allowed if it can be shown to support the rural economy.

The last thing anyone wants is to see housing popping up all over our precious landscape, but for it to have a future, this landscape must be a living one.

Any new development would have a strict rural occupancy condition attached to stop yet more property falling into the hands of second home owners.

Currently, Welsh planning policies allow houses to be built in the countryside if they support agricultural and forestry enterprises.

The National Assembly research project saw there was scope for widening these policies to include dwellings to support other rural enterprises.

It also suggested that the current agricultural occupancy condition could be broadened to reflect the diversification of rural enterprises.

In effect, if a farmer diversified there could be a case for making a property with an occupancy condition available for an employee of this new enterprise.

I don't think we would want to see Pembrokeshire going down the route of Exmoor and the Yorkshire Dales national parks in banning people who were not born locally from buying new homes in certain areas. This could stifle communities.

Limited sympathetic development, new homes where only people employed in rural businesses could live, is a better solution and one which might soon become reality.