The Independent 31st Oct 1998

Country Matters: More houses - who needs them?

Can anyone save the countryside from the tidal wave of concrete, bricks and mortar likely to roll in, as the Government seems convinced that England needs 4.4m new houses by 2011? The closer you look into this looming catastrophe, the smaller the chances seem of averting it.

This gloomy assessment derives in part from a meeting recently held by our local sub-branch of the Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE). In global terms we of the Berkeley Vale count for practically nothing. We are one of 200-odd sub-branches, and our 170-odd members constitute only a fraction of the CPRE's total strength of 46,000.

Nevertheless, we felt we should make presentations to parish councils to show that we had been doing our best to fight the proposals of the Gloucestershire County Structure Plan. The meeting, held in the village hall at Slimbridge, highlighted the weakness of the whole planning process, as well as the deep-seated alarm of local people that they are about to be overrun by urban sprawl.

The first draft of the structure plan, covering 1991 to 2011, stated that Gloucestershire would have to find room for 53,000 new houses; but the draft attracted such a storm of objections that in November last year it was abandoned. A deposit draft plan, published in April this year, reduced the total to 50,000, but was also attacked from every quarter; and in September an independent panel appointed by the Government held an Examination in Public (EiP) to review all the submissions put forward. We are now awaiting the panel's report.

The main point we put to our meeting was that vigorous local action groups, helped by the CPRE, had shot the case for 50,000 houses full of holes: our own research had shown that the total was wildly exaggerated. The figure was strongly influenced by the net immigration of people to the county, which, it was claimed, had been running at an average of 2,700 people a year for the past two decades.

Recourse to the Office of National Statistics revealed that one third of the 2,700 were Armed Forces personnel; but the checks we made with the commanding officers of local garrisons showed that the alleged net inflow of 900 service personnel per annum does not exist. It is an entirely fallacious statistical projection from trends that are no longer in being. Far from increasing every year, the strength of the Armed Forces in the county is falling slowly as bases are run down.

The structure plan includes provision for 8,000 service homes. Our research has made it clear that these are simply not needed. Moreover, our latest information on general population trends in the South-west strongly suggests that even if 8,000 were removed from the county total, reducing it to 42,000, this figure would still be too high.

The import of these figures is obvious. But will they make any difference in the end? Will anyone in authority pay attention to them? Our scouts came away from the EiP with the strong impression that the answer to both questions is 'No'.

The inspector in charge was eminently fair and thorough in hearing evidence; but his report will have no executive power. It will contain recommendations only, and it will be the County Council that, in the end, takes the decisions.

One experienced observer reckoned that the final total might go up from 50,000, rather than down - such are the pressures in favour of building. On the one hand, the big developers are clamouring for sites and offering huge prices for land. On the other, with agriculture in depression, farmers who cannot make ends meet are eager to sell. The council itself, chronically short of funds, owns several farms from which, in theory, it could make millions.

Last November, when Stroud District Council put out a call for possible sites in the Berkeley Vale on which to build 1,000 houses, the response was phenomenal: in came offers of 3,800 acres - enough for 40,000 houses at least. Yet that should not have been surprising, for building land is now and the Scarce Emerald Damselfly. The water vole, the subject of a government rescue plan, is also found here.

'This is an important place for wildlife. If development goes ahead here it will mean the largest single loss of SSSI in England since the Wildlife and Countryside Act was passed in 1981,' said the EA spokesman.

Havering insists there is no alternative brownfield site available for the kind of development they have in mind and disputes some of the wildlife statistics, claiming Rainham's wildlife value 'has seriously declined'. 'But if development goes ahead there will be a package of benefits for nature conservation which more than compensates, providing over twice the area that will be lost to development,' said a spokesman.

The council said the most valuable part of the Inner Thames Marshes SSSI was the eastern end including Wennington and Aveley Marshes, both with Green Belt protection and not earmarked for development.

The conservationists' brows remain furrowed. After all, Stevenage thought its Green Belt land was untouchable until new homes were needed and no alternative site was found.

Rainham has already escaped the clutches of an American developer who wanted to turn it into a vast theme park. The company pulled out, possibly because the cost of simply preparing the watery site for safe construction is understood to have come to roughly pounds 16m. only time will tell if it will escape again. Both camps in the struggle for London's last grazing marsh look set for a showdown soon, probably taking the form of a public inquiry. In the meantime, the lapwings are taking advantage of the slowly turning wheels of local authority planning procedure and trying to claw their way back.

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