Recent planning battles illustrate how it is becoming acceptable to build homes in areas once considered protected.

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1 SOME of the country s greatest writers have warned the government that its housing plan threatens to ruin English landscapes that have inspired generations of poets, artists and novelists. Sir Andrew Motion, the former poet laureate, and 19 others, including Philip Pullman and Jeanette Winterson, have condemned plans to build 650,000 homes in the countryside, including 150,000 in the green belt, warning that it will destroy many of the country s most cherished beauty spots. In a letter published in today s Sunday Times, the luminaries, who also include the poet Simon Armitage, the novelist John le Carré and the sculptor Cornelia Parker, argue that the government s policy of giving preference to virgin greenfield sites over brownfield sites in cities is threatening the matchless beauty of England. The letter, supporting the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) campaign against excess development, warns that the scale of greenfield housing projects is unprecedented. Motion, who is president of the CPRE, said: Our countryside has inspired writers and artists since we first had a distinctive national culture. It is being wantonly eroded and this is tragic. Ministers need to take off their blinkers and face up to the fact that their planning reforms are resulting in poor-quality development in the wrong places. Recent planning battles illustrate how it is becoming acceptable to build homes in areas once considered protected. For example, councillors have approved a plan for 2,500 homes in East Coker, near Yeovil, Somerset, an area renowned for its tranquillity and immortalised by TS Eliot in his Four Quartets. Angry villagers, backed by the TS Eliot Society in the

2 American-born poet s homeland, have appealed against the decision. The writer John le Carré has joined the campaign to protect the countryside (Rex Features) The last remaining farmland north of Stevenage, Hertfordshire, called Forster Country because it inspired some of EM Forster s novels, is earmarked for up to 6,600 homes. Last week Jack Dromey, Labour s housing spokesman, pledged a new generation of social homes on a scale not seen in a long time and cited Stevenage s right to grow. In Gloucestershire, Slad Valley, immortalised by Laurie Lee in Cider with Rosie, is at the centre of a row over plans for 140 homes that were initially rejected but are now the subject of an

3 appeal. At the heart of the surge in greenfield developments is a demand for homes driven by Britain s rising population and the increase in single-person households. About 110,000 homes are built each year, far below demand of up to 250,000 a year. Shaun Spiers, chief executive of the CPRE, argued that far more homes could be built on brownfield and urban sites. Countryside is being destroyed while derelict urban sites are crying out for investment and regeneration. This is a social and environmental disaster. Other signatories to the letter are Julian Barnes, Sir Quentin Blake, Lord Bragg, Bill Bryson, Jane Gardam, Maggi Hambling, Alan Hollinghurst, Ken Howard, Dame Penelope Lively, Robert Macfarlane, Alice Oswald, Rose Tremain, Benjamin Zephaniah, David Lodge and Marina Lewycka. Lewycka, author of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, said: The countryside is like the lungs and cities are the heart. We need both to keep alive, but we need to keep them separate. The worst thing is to let the city seep into the countryside, while allowing areas of our cities to become wasteland for growing weeds.

4 Marina Lewycka and other writers say the matchless beauty of England is threatened (David Levenson) Some campaigns against development have succeeded, including one in Winterborne Came, Dorset, where plans for 1,000 homes on land commemorated by Thomas Hardy in The Last Signal, a poem about the funeral of his fellow poet William Barnes, were rejected. Winterson, author of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, said: We need imaginative people, not policy wonks or developers, to redraw our housing strategy. I don t know why politicians can t think in colour. Especially the colour green. Forests stop growing England s woodlands have stopped growing, write Hannah Summers and Jonathan Leake. After a century of expansion,

5 the area covered by forest has stuck at 10% and may even be in decline. Government statistics show that just 2,600 hectares of woodland were planted last year, half the official target and probably less than the amount destroyed for development. Hilary Allison, policy director of the Woodland Trust, said ancient woods were under threat because planning rules allowed them to be axed if the benefits of development clearly outweigh the loss, without defining how benefits should be measured. Despite government promises to protect forests and woods, 32 hectares of ancient woodland in Kent was recently consigned to destruction by a quarry. No woodland will be safe until these policy flaws are addressed, she said.