GOVERNMENT targets to build three million homes in the next decade despite the credit crunch are today described as "fantasy" by one of countryside’s most respected conservation groups..

The losers will be the countryside and urban areas where regeneration has stalled because they can no longer attract the investment they need in order to thrive.

Kate Gordon - CPRE

"No-one in the [construction] industry believes the national target of three million homes by 2020 can be met," says the Campaign to Protect Rural England.

A parliamentary group of MPs who have investigated the proposals will today publish a report backing the Government targets – although it members will also call for the refurbishing of more older homes and concentrating new build schemes on affordable social housing.

The MPs are "wrong to back this fantasy building target" says the CPRE's senior planner Kate Gordon.

She goes on: "We welcome some of the committee’s recommendations, such as building and refurbishing more social homes, for which the need is urgent. But we are disappointed that it is backing the Government's damaging house building targets.

"Pursuing this target will lead to greenfield land being allocated needlessly for development – developers have been trying to reduce the size of their landbanks, not increase them. The losers will be the countryside and urban areas where regeneration has stalled because they can no longer attract the investment they need in order to thrive."