New Dales homes for locals only

ONE OF England's biggest countryside campaign groups is today publishing a major report begging the Government to take a new approach to high-density urban housing to save thousands of acres of rural land being concreted over.

Mistakes from the past - like the hated tower blocks built by Labour governments in the 1960s - have blighted public opinion against high-density housing in towns and cities, says the influential Campaign to Protect Rural England.

But the present Government has swung the other way, with plans to build several million homes on greenfield rural sites to cope with the hugely increased demand for housing caused by many different factors, including the growing numbers of unmarried people living alone and the huge influx of immigrants. The Yorkshire Dales is offered some degree of protection with National Park planning rules stating that new homes should provide for local needs only.

The CPRE commissioned experts to study these problems and says that high density could still be popular in urban areas if the government were to tackle certain problems:

• misconceptions based on some problem high-rise developments of the 1960s and 1970s

• the need for good architectural design

• the need for better management of the public realm

• the need to mix uses and tenures in housing developments

Nigel Kersey, CPRE executive comments: "In recent years, policies have shifted substantially in favour of higher densities, but planners are still faced with out-dated prejudices based on past mistakes such as poorly planned and inadequately maintained tower-blocks.

"Our report will help planners embrace higher densities, and encourages them to reassure local communities of their wider benefits: promoting economic vitality, support public services and transport, and helping protect the countryside."