‘Immoral’ developers ‘targeting rural areas and refusing to build on brownfield sites’
These sound like a well balanced (not) series of statements from CPRE. I wonder if its just developers who want to build in rural areas? I suspect it takes more than one side of the equation to make a market and after all when was the last time anyone under 25 got a mortgage in large swathes of rural England…..
Developers are “gorging” on greenfield sites in rural areas to build despite a record amount of brownfield land being available for construction, a charity has said.
A report by the CPRE, an organisation that aims to protect the countryside, said there is enough brownfield land in England to accommodate 1.3 million homes.
Despite this, CPRE said “wasteful and immoral” developers are choosing to concrete over greensites because it is cheaper. Emma Bridgewater, the charity’s president, is calling for councils and planners to take a “brownfield first policy”.
“We need to direct councils and developers to use these sites – often in town and city centres where housing need is most acute – before any greenfield land can be released,” she said.
“It is wasteful and immoral to abandon our former industrial heartlands where factories and outdated housing have fallen into disrepair. Developing brownfield is a win-win solution that holds back the tide of new buildings on pristine countryside and aids urban regeneration at a stroke.”