CPRE tells builders to improve schemes to avoid planning battles

THE Council for the Protection of Rural England has said that housebuilders need to improve the quality of schemes if the “barely suppressed hostility between developers and conservationists” is to end.

Delivering a speech to the Housing Market Intelligence conference in London today, CPRE’s chief executive Shaun Spiers challenged housebuilders to adopt five principles to future developments. They incude:- adopting a brownfield-first approach to identifying sites; maintaining high design and building standards; ensuring homes are design with decent space standards; masterplanning for better places overall rather than just individual homes and and providing industry support for a democratic planning system.

Mr Spiers acknowledged that the UK needs more homes – particularly affordable properties, but argued that it should be possible for these to be delivered without destroying the countryside or the character of local towns and villages.

“Organisations like CPRE will have to be demonstrate that we really are able to support housing developments, as well as oppose them. I recognise that it is not enough to support the idea of new housing in the abstract,” he said.

“But house builders also need to raise their game. Following the five principles CPRE is proposing will go a long way to building trust with those who might otherwise oppose new developments.

“Ministers may think that they will achieve a boost to house building by weakening the planning system, but their proposals are more likely to result in costly and divisive planning battles across the country,” he added.

“If the country is to get the homes it needs, we need an emphasis on quality and on good planning – more planning, not less.”