The Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) has put forward three demands to tackle the issue of planning controls in the UK.
The organisation's Save our Countryside Charter is calling for:
- Don’t sacrifice our countryside. Our open spaces are being destroyed unnecessarily. Previously developed brownfield sites should be re-used first.
- A fair say for communities. The cards are stacked in favour of developers. We want a democratic planning system that gives local people a stronger voice.
- More housing – in the right places. The country needs affordable homes. They must be sensitively located, with excellent environmental standards and high quality design.
The CPRE's president, poet laureate Andrew Motion, will be putting forward the three demands at a meeting with MPs this week.
And the CPRE aims to get people to sign the charter and continue to put pressure on the government in the run up to the next general election.
Shaun Spiers, CPRE’s chief executive said: "A beautiful countryside, better places to live and economic prosperity all rely on good planning, which in turn depends on giving people a proper say in what development should go where.
"CPRE’s charter to save our countryside points the way to a planning system that can deliver the development the country needs, in the right places and with popular consent.
"The government wants quality development and it wants to look after the countryside, but it is in denial about the impact its policies are having across England.
"Minister must listen to the anger of communities, urban as well as rural, who currently feel ignored. We need mass support for CPRE’s Charter to save our countryside so that ministers will be persuaded to sit up and take notice of what is really happening."
In a recent analysis of emerging and adopted local plans, the CPRE says it found that at least 500,000 new houses are planned on greenfield sites.
If these houses were built at the average densities of recent years it would result in the further loss of over 150 square kilometres of green fields.
This is at a time when it is estimated that there are brownfield sites available for over 1.5 million homes.
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