THE storm of protest over planning reforms backed by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott will intensify yet further today (Tuesday) when another powerful lobby group joins the campaign.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which is Britain's biggest wildlife conservation body, says the proposals for more planning reforms due to be published today will break EU laws on the preservation of important wildlife areas.

Prescott is already under enormous pressure for plans to build hundreds of thousands of homes of greenfield sites, proposals top scrap large areas of greenbelt, and sending in the bulldozers to demolish thousands of perfectly serviceable Victorian houses in northern cities.

Today, the Government is due to publish yet another planning strategy dealing with biodiversity and landscape but the RSPB points out that the UK is already in breach of EU law on conservation of important wildlife sites - and predicts that the new proposals will make matters even worse.