CPRE believes that a healthy, thriving countryside is important for everyone, no matter where they live. Our approach to housing policy embodies this belief. Good planning should provide everyone with a decent home they can afford. While housing development can have a significant landscape impact we believe it is possible to avoid sporadic development in the countryside and the unsustainable sprawl of our towns and cities.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England are not anti development. We campaign to ensure we have the right kind of development, in the right place for the right reasons at the right time. New homes should not be provided simply on the basis of a crude ‘predict and provide’ policy, which uses past trends to determine future projections. Planning for housing, nationally and locally, should not be seen as a simplistic numbers game. It should be about people and the importance of people - the people of this generation and the next and …the next ……

 We are campaigning for the following: 

1. The amount, type and location of new housing development should be agreed through a democratic and transparent plan-led system, and phasing policies should be used to ensure that brownfield sites are developed before greenfield ones wherever possible;
2.  Housing need should be assessed using a robust and up to date evidence base, which includes realistic and regularly updated economic and demographic forecasts;
3.  The best use should be made of our existing building stock;
4.  The value of the countryside for its own sake should be recognised and land used effectively and efficiently. Additionally, the location of new development should respect
5.  Any local, national and international environmental designations, and also the landscape, historic and neighbourhood character of the area;
6.  New housing stock should reflect household need in terms of location, size, type, tenure and affordability, and be designed to support diverse communities;
7.  New developments should take account of environmental, social, service and infrastructure capacity and be based on ‘Smart Growth’ principles;
8.  New homes should achieve the highest possible standards of design and environmental performance; and priority should be given to the provision of homes, and particularly affordable homes, to help maintain thriving rural communities.

CPRE Craven have been informed of a proposed circa 50% increase in the number of new homes to be delivered in the Craven District. We suggest this figure is unsustainable and unachievable. 

The housing targets should be achievable and sustainable otherwise the local authority will lose the ability to control the right development in the right place at the right time.

Taken together these principles amount to a ‘plan, monitor and manage’ approach.New homes should not be provided simply on the basis of a crude ‘predict and provide’ policy, which uses past trends to determine future projections. Planning for housing, nationally and locally, should not be seen as a simplistic numbers game.

 Therefore we return to our original statement:

CPRE believes that a healthy, thriving countryside is important for everyone, no matter where they live. Our approach to housing policy embodies this belief. Good planning should provide everyone with a decent home they can afford. While housing development can have a significant landscape impact we believe it is possible to avoid sporadic development in the countryside and the unsustainable sprawl of our towns and cities.

 The Campaign to Protect Rural England are not anti development. We campaign to ensure we have the right kind of development, in the right place for the right reasons at the right time. New homes should not be provided simply on the basis of a crude ‘predict and provide’ policy, which uses past trends to determine future projections. Planning for housing, nationally and locally, should not be seen as a simplistic numbers game. It should be about people and the importance of people - the people of this generation and the next and …the next ……