The great taboo about why our countryside is being ripped apart by the bulldozers



One reason why I am a ‘small c’ conservative is that I am in favour of keeping the best things about our country as they are, insofar as that is possible in an age of relentless change. Naturally, I accept that not everyone can agree about what is worth preserving.

But there is probably a strong majority of people, even in towns, who want to keep what remains of the English countryside as it is. I say ‘English’ because Scotland and Wales remain relatively under-populated, and can absorb limited development more painlessly.

England, and in particular the South-East, is different. It is already one of the most densely populated nations in Europe. Large tracts of it are countryside no more. If there are not new roads and dwellings, there are hideous wind turbines springing up everywhere, new pylons scouring once beautiful valleys, and mobile phone masts destroying perfect views.

Countryside no more: Dwellings are being built across greenbelt land to cater for the large population in the UK, yet there is still a shortage

The Conservative Party could once be depended on to do its bit to resist the gradual concreting over of England. At any rate it was better than Labour. No longer, I fear. The Coalition has come up with something called the National Policy Planning Framework, promoted by Greg Clark, the planning minister, which is intended to facilitate development even where local communities object.

My immediate instinct is to put Mr Clark in a barrel and drop him off the end of a cliff. But doesn’t he have a point? Grant Shapps, the housing minister, makes the irrefutable case that there is a shortage of affordable houses in England, particular in those parts (e.g. the South-East) where many people want to live.

Part of the reason is economic, of course. Fewer houses are being built because there is less money around, and mortgages are more difficult to obtain. In fact, only 105,000 houses were put up last year, the smallest number since the 1920s.

But even if the economy were humming along there would still be a shortage of new homes. More would be built, but more people would also want to buy them. In other words, there is a ‘structural shortage’ of houses resulting at least in part from our tight planning laws, which both ministers want to loosen.

Plans: Greg Clark has come up with the National Planning Policy Framework, which allows homes to be built even when there are objections

One way forward, which I am not sure both men have sufficiently explored, is to build as many homes as possible on unused urban land. Network Rail, for example, is sitting on thousands of acres, some of which could be given over to new houses. To be fair, the Government is releasing some of the land it owns for new homes. Others point out that there are hundreds of thousands of unoccupied dwellings.

According to the Tory MP John Redwood in his blog, there are 738,414 of unoccupied dwellings throughout the United Kingdom. If only a proportion could be pressed into use, that would help to relieve pressure. The Government should consider taxing unused building land, as well as homes which remain unoccupied for a long period of time.

Such measures would undoubtedly help, but I question whether they would solve the underlying problem, which is that the demand for affordable homes outstrips supply, especially in the part of the country where many people want to live, namely the South-East.

The Government is no doubt going too far and too fast in relaxing planning laws, which will lead to more meadows, copses and spinneys being laid low by the bulldozer. But in the end this is a numbers game, and the logic of the numbers is that millions of new houses will have to be built over the next decade or two.

It used to be said that divorce was the biggest ‘driver’ of domestic building, demanding a growing number of properties for single occupancy. But a quickly rising population — growing much faster than any other country in Europe — is now a more important factor.

According to whom you believe, new immigration accounts for between a half and two-thirds of this rapidly increasing figure. The population of the UK is officially put at 61 million, though some authorities think it is already considerably more.

Last year there was net immigration into this country of 239,000, an increase of more than 20 per cent over 2009. At this rate the population will be 70 million by 2025, a rise of 11 million over 15 years. These people will all have to live somewhere, and many of them will choose to live in the South-East.

Another way of looking at it is to say that, always accepting the unreliability of population projections, we may have to build the equivalent of about 22 cities the size of Bristol or Sheffield within only a decade and a half. This can’t and won’t be done simply by erecting more houses on urban ‘brownfield sites’.



Overcrowded Isle: The population of the UK will rise be more than 70 million by 2025 - and all the new residents will need somewhere to live

An awful lot of green and pleasant acres are going to be soaked up by new buildings and new roads, and they won’t be in the Snowdonia National Park or the Cairngorms. There will be thousands of extra wind turbines intended (probably wrong-headedly) to produce extra power for millions of new dwellings, as well as many more unsightly pylons to supply it.

Even if all immigration were stopped tomorrow, which of course it couldn’t and shouldn’t be, we would still face a significant population increase because of the effects of the high levels of immigration over the past 15 years or so.

To a large extent, the die has been cast. But the extent and speed of population increase could still be controlled if this and future governments were willing and able to regulate immigration. For all the Coalition’s brave talk, the evidence so far is that it isn’t.

Perhaps a mid-century Britain with a projected population of 80 million (the highest of any country in Western Europe) would be a thriving and successful country. Or possibly it will be failing to compete with its more efficient Asian competitors, and struggling to support an over-large and ageing population.

Unsightly: Thousands of extra wind turbines will need to be be built to provide the extra power needed for all the homes needed to accommodate the extra members of population

In either event, at this rate of expansion the English countryside, particularly in the South-East, will continue to be urbanised and suburbanised. Greg Clark and Grant Shapps are just riding with the tide, though they do not spell out the real reasons behind their relaxation of our planning laws.

Much of the debate over immigration has rightly concerned the effect on the indigenous underclass, white, black and brown. On Tuesday, government figures confirmed that nine of ten jobs created last year went to foreigners. We employ hard-working, agreeable immigrants while allowing our own people to fester on welfare.