The Solutions

We can stop the countryside being eroded by new housing developments by promoting regeneration of our towns and villages and making more use of previously developed ‘brownfield’ land before we build over green fields.

This creates a ‘win-win’ situation - less countryside is nibbled away and urban neighbourhoods become more desirable places to live.

Recycling ‘brownfield’ sites

Recycling ‘brownfield’ land such as the many empty sites and derelict buildings found in existing towns and villages is the most sustainable approach to accommodating new houses.

A vast amount of underused and abandoned land within towns and cities is going to waste. Developers can also bring some abandoned and underused old buildings back to life by converting them into homes.

Urban regeneration

Empty brownfield sites blight neighbourhoods. Redeveloping them can turn urban areas into desirable places to live. Building on brownfield sites can create strong communities where local facilities and workplaces are closer, there is more public transport and where people find it convenient to walk or cycle rather than relying on cars.

By encouraging urban regeneration, more people will want to live in our cities (rather than leave them for smaller towns and villages), reducing the need to build in the countryside.

Using land more efficiently

We can make more efficient use of land by getting design and density right. With good design, good quality new homes, including enough family homes with gardens, can be built at higher densities than are currently found in many new developments.

Government housing policy says new developments must be built at a density of 30 to 50 dwellings per hectare for new housing developments, and higher densities for locations close to town centres or with good transport links.

The latest figures show that densities are now improving, approaching densities of 40 homes per hectare, achieved in 2005. However, there are places where this increase has come entirely through building more flats - and other places where housebuilders still get away with wastefully low densities.

By building at densities as high as 50 dwellings per hectare it is still possible to create spacious family homes with their own gardens and car parking spaces. We don’t need to build only flats or high rise developments to build at more efficient densities.