Rural housebuilding boom sparks row

The housebuilders' lobby is over-powerful and is causing too much countryside to be ruined by new housing developments, the Council for the Protection of Rural England claimed this week.

Tony Burton, CPRE's head of planning and natural resources, said: "Housebuilders are enormously successful at influencing Government housing policy.

"It is easier to build in the countryside. The fact that we have so much housebuilding outside urban areas reflects the House Builders Federation's muscle.

"Housebuilders have an easy ride. The planning system is geared in their favour: they are guaranteed five year's supply of land and Government refuses to accept lower housebuilding figures in the shire counties' housing plans," he added.

Roger Humber, director of the House Builders Federation, reacted: "This is total rubbish. The presumption has moved against building outside the urban area.

"Anyway, housebuilders don't build in nice countryside because it doesn't relate to jobs and there is no infrastructure. Housebuilders want to build on the edge of existing urban areas."

The Government plans to allow over two million new houses to be built in the countryside over the next ten years.

It sees a total need for 4.4 million properties by 2016 and recommends that this be split 50:50 between new build in existing urban and green rural areas.