Land needed for 600,000 new homes

Another 600,000 homes must be built in the English countryside by 2016, on top of those for which land has already been allocated, according to a new report seen by The Independent newspaper.

Most of the extra new homes - 400,000 - will need to be built on greenfield sites in the already crowded south-east, according to the Royal Town Planning Institute. The study has been prepared for the Government's Urban Task Force, under Lord Rogers of Riverside, which is examining the question of where new homes should be built.

After surveying local councils, the institute estimates that land has so far only been allocated in structure plans for just over a million of the 1,640,000 new houses that the countryside in England may need to take if future household projection figures are to be met.

Its conclusion depends on assuming that the Government will want to follow the household projections, and that 40 per cent of the total must be built in the countryside. The government's target is for 60 per cent of the total to be built on brownfield sites in towns.

The Government has said it wants to move to a new approach based on the capacity of counties to take more building. Furthermore, the 60/40 figure is subject to review.

The Independent 27th May 1999

There is bad news for green belt land in Hemel Hempstead. The old political parties, planners and developers all have their noses in the same trough. They are selling England for profit. The solution is to resist the growth in population in the South-east of England. No new homes must be allowed on the countryside.

Letter to the editor, The Independent:

There are lies, damned lies, statistics and future projections. The population is not increasing; the homes won't be given to the homeless; guesses about future divorce rates seem a vague basis for such a dogmatic assertion.

These projections mean that, if 600,000 houses can be built cheaply on greenfield sites in the overcrowded Southeast, the developers will make a handsome profit. Effects on the environment, transport, water supply, disadvantaged areas outside the Southeast and existing residents are not the developers' problem.

Apparently they don't bother the Government, either.

Stephen Lowe Watson, Lewes, East Sussex.

The politicians will get their cut.

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