CPRE launches 'Communities not Concrete' campaign

The Council for the Protecion of Rural England (CPRE) has today (Wednesday) launched a major new campaign on the Government's Sustainable Communities Plan.

Its 'Communities not Concrete' campaign aims to ensure that the government's aims for communities and housing are delivered in a way that: boosts urban renewal; protects the countryside; and improves, rather than undermines, everyone's quality of life.

CPRE has urged all its members in the proposed south east growth to write to their MP to raise concerns about the potential impact on the countryside of development on the scale proposed. 

Launching the campaign, Julie Stainton, CPRE's national planning campaigner, said: "CPRE believes that the Plan raises unanswered questions and could pose serious dangers to the countryside.

"Growth on this scale could devastate the countryside in a region already under severe pressure. And it could further damage declining urban areas which desperately need investment and attention - not just elsewhere in the region but right across the country.

"The Plan misses a golden opportunity to deliver radical improvements in green construction.  We're also worried that the need to ensure that new housing is affordable{5} and meets real needs could be lost in the pressure to build, build, build."