Developments will permanently scar English countryside

One of CPRE’s strengths is that we have campaigners and planning experts across England – our eyes and ears – who tell us what is really happening to the countryside. So while Ministers say, and I am sure truly believe that everything is fine, that all developments are necessary and accord with the wishes of local people, we can say what is really going on.

And the reality is that across England sound planning principles are being brushed aside in the interests of short-term economic growth. To take housing alone, around 150,000 houses are planned for the Green Belt, and a further 500,000 for the ‘ordinary’ countryside that does not enjoy any special protection – all this while suitable brownfield land for 1.5 million new homes goes to waste.

Now we have looked at the impact of the Government’s planning reforms on England’s National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs), and the picture is alarming. Nationally designated landscapes enjoy the highest level of protection in planning policy. If they are not safe from damaging and poor quality development, nowhere is.

High profile pressures include a major new road through the Peak District, a caravan park in the Yorkshire Dales, a large housing development beside the White Cliffs of Dover, and a massive solar development in Dorset.

But the development which makes me weep is a small one, two million pound mansions on the edge of Mevagissey in Cornwall. The parish council wants to build affordable homes and has identified appropriate sites within the village. But getting them built will require cross subsidy, so the AONB and the coastal path are up for sale to anyone who can afford a sea view. If that is how we are going to build affordable housing in rural areas in future, we can say goodbye to much of our countryside and coastline.

I can predict Ministers’ reaction to this report. They will not be able to contest the evidence, but they will say that our examples are unrepresentative, that CPREis scaremongering, that we want to ‘embalm’ the countryside. Nonsense, of course. CPREhas always been about getting the right development in the right places, not simply about opposing development. That is why, for instance, we are supportive of high speed rail as a means of increasing rail capacity – a highly controversial position, but one that gives the lie to the idea that we glibly oppose all major developments.

We want a living countryside, and that means recognizing that even our most precious landscapes will change over time, and accommodate some developments. But what is happening now is shoddy, ill-planned and, in many cases, imposed on local people by central government. It is bringing the planning system into disrepute and will permanently scar some of England’s finest countryside. The Government needs an urgent rethink about the handling and impact of its reforms.