CPRE said the countryside is set to suffer from the "triple whammy" created from the scrapping of national brownfield sites, the introduction of a default ‘yes’ to development, and proposals for land auctions.
Director of policy Neil Sinden said: "The planning measures present a potentially devastating threat to the countryside and are unlikely to boost long-term economic growth.
"To suggest, as successive governments have done, that planning is a key impediment to growth is just wrong , and it is disappointing that George Osborne is repeating the mistaken assertions made by Gordon Brown."
He said plans to scrap national brownfield targets would put "green fields unnecessarily in the path of the bulldozers" and described Osborne’s reassurance of protection of the Green Belt as "nothing more than a fig leaf".
Responding to CPRE's concerns, a representative from the Department for Communities and Local Government said the organisation has "misjudged" the proposals outlined in the budget.
They said: "Protecting our environment and reforming the planning system to help Britain recover are not incompatible - our commitment to maintain the Green Belt and other environmental protections in national planning policy remain absolute.
"We believe that local people should take charge of where they wish development to take place, rather than being imposed on by Whitehall, and we fully expect that local authorities will still want a very significant proportion of development to still take place on previously developed land."
They said the brownfield target had become "discredited" due to a huge increase in the amount of building on back gardens in the past ten years.
Published: 30/03/2011
Source: http://sportsmanagement.co.uk/detail1.cfm?pagetype=detail&subject=news&codeID=250333&site=SM&dom=N
