South of England is thriving to a point, but it is a commuter belt with local people forced out because they can't afford to buy in the area they were born and raised in as 2nd home owners and commuters swoop up the houses. Try a village in Yorkshire or the Midlands and they are dying. Even those down the South West are dead outside of the holiday seasonHave you been in the South of England recently? It’s thriving.
If you want a village to survive people have to live in it, not in some vulgar McMansion a mile away.