'The Government is persisting in its top-down imposition of demands for unsustainable growth.'

This is the verdict of countryside campaigners CPRE{1} on the publication today by the Government of its Milton Keynes and South Midlands Sub-regional Strategy.{2} This demands a 45% increase in the number of new homes to be built by 2021 over and above previously agreed levels, in a largely rural area stretching from Aylesbury to Corby and covering large parts of Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire.{3}

The Government strategy includes:

• major threats to designated Green Belt land and the wider countryside;{4}
• road schemes — which will fuel traffic growth and congestion —- as opposed to funding sustainable travel choices; but
• no guarantees of affordable housing.

'Not only is there a failure in this plan to ensure that a significant proportion of the additional new housing will be affordable,'{5} explains CPRE planning campaigner Julie Stainton, 'but the absence of a specific target for the re-use of brownfield land{6} means that many thousands of these homes will be on greenfield sites.

'The strategy also insists on Green Belt boundaries being reviewed to accommodate growth. This makes repeated Government assurances about the protection of the Green Belt ring hollow indeed. Merely swapping threatened Green Belt for other, unthreatened land undermines the basic principles of Green Belt policy.

'Add the fact that eight out of the eleven proposed new transport schemes are for roads{7} and we have the major ingredients of a centrally-imposed, un-Sustainable Communities Plan.'

The sub-regional strategy will bring major growth to the new town of Milton Keynes, making this fast growing area one of England's bigger settlements, as well as enlarging several other settlements.

- END -

NOTES FOR EDITORS

1. CPRE exists to promote the beauty, tranquillity and diversity of rural England by encouraging the sustainable use of land and other natural resources in town and country. We promote positive solutions for the long-term future of the countryside to ensure change values its natural and built environment. Our Patron is Her Majesty The Queen. We have 59,000 supporters, a branch in every county, nine regional groups, over 200 local groups and a national office in London. CPRE is a powerful combination of effective local action and strong national campaigning. Our President is Sir Max Hastings.

2. The Milton Keynes & South Midlands Sub-Regional Strategy (SRS) was published today by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Copies can be viewed on the ODPM website at http://www.communities.gov.uk/.  Milton Keynes & the South Midlands is one of four growth areas earmarked for major growth in Sustainable Communities: Building for the Future (the Sustainable Communities Plan), launched by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott in February 2003. CPRE has argued that the Plan should be delivered in a way that boosts urban renewal; protects the countryside; and improves, rather than undermines, everyone's quality of life.

3. The sub-regional strategy requires an additional 65,850 new homes in the growth area on top of the 145,350 in previously agreed Regional Planning Guidance.

4. The Strategy requires reviews of the Green Belt around Luton/Dunstable/Houghton Regis and Leighton Linslade.  It fails to identify land around Milton Keynes and Northampton for new Green Belt designation.

5. CPRE has been pressing for the sub-regional strategy to specify a minimum proportion of new homes which can be afforded, for rent or purchase, by households on lower incomes.

6. The SRS fails to specify even the national minimum target of 60% of new residential development to take place on brownfield sites.  This is particularly alarming when the Regional Assemblies have estimated that less than 34% of new development in the sub-region will be on such sites.

7. See Part A, Figure 2: Strategic Transport Infrastructure Priorities of the SRS (p.15).