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Press Release

New housing targets: A green light for urban sprawl

30 July 2009

CPRE expressed dismay today (Thursday) at unrealistic and unsustainable new housing targets. In their latest advice to Government, the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit (NHPAU), calls for up to 290,500 new homes to be built each year in England.

Kate Gordon, CPRE's Senior Planning Officer said:

'We acknowledge the need for more homes but at around three times present construction rates, these figures are hopelessly unachievable. They cannot be disregarded, however, because if pursued they could still cause immense harm to the countryside, without making any difference to the nation's need for affordable housing.'

'Local councils could be faced with no choice but to allocate greenfield land for housing development to meet these high targets. Developers would then 'cherry pick' undeveloped land, which is more profitable and easier to develop than brownfield locations. A worst case scenario would be that developers abandon urban areas completely and focus their efforts on building in the countryside.'

CPRE's concerns include:

• a failure by the NHPAU to understand that we cannot build our way out of the housing affordability problem – the economics of housing is far more complicated than simply believing that if we set higher housing targets, more will be built and house prices will fall;


• a failure to understand the crucial role that the planning system plays in delivering development in the wider public interest while conserving the landscape, natural resources and environmental quality;


• a failure to recognise that housing supply problems stem from unstable, unsustainable finance arrangements in the development industry, and have little to do with the planning system.


Kate Gordon concluded:

'We will continue to raise these concerns with Ministers. Our housing industry is in crisis, with construction at its lowest level for many years. It is common knowledge that the UK has an affordability and housing supply problem. Rather than come up with practical solutions, the Government's housing advisers' seem to have completely missed the point.'



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