The Campaign to Protect Rural England has dismissed claims that housebuilders are running out of land to use.

The organisation says that there is now enough land with planning permission to build more than a quarter of a million houses.

A spokesman for ODPM told ePolitix.com: "When we look at building in the UK we hit our targets for 60 percent to be on brownfield land.

"We will shortly be publishing figures for this year and are keen to continue this pattern."

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Conservative housing spokesman, told ePolitix.com: "These figures demonstrate there is enough land to build over 250,000 new homes without concreting over more precious greenfield land.

"Given this, only a government of extreme incompetence would fail to protect our greenfields.

"Once again, its it shown that the deputy prime minister's policy of concreting over greenfields is unnecessary, unfair and unforgivable."

Forum Response: Country Land and Business Association

Richard Jarman, spokesman for the CLA, told ePolitix.com: "The future of rural communities and the rural economy is as much threatened by lack of sustainable development as it is by major housebuilding projects.

"The CLA has no independent research on which to judge the competing claims of the Town and Country Planning Association and the CPRE. However, we increasingly see problems arising where policies designed to prevent large scale development are leading to blanket refusals for small scale sustainable projects proposed by our members.

"For instance, in the West Midlands, proposals for high quality barn conversions are being turned down on the excuse that regional housebuilding targets have been met for the plan period. This is a nonsense when, without expenditure on repairs and maintenance, these fine buildings may well have been lost by the time the next plan comes into force.

"Equally, top down policies applied to defend the wider countryside are preventing sustainable organic growth of small rural settlements, where such growth may be key to preserving local services such as schools, shops and doctors surgeries.

"The wider countryside is losing out in the clash of the opposing interests, and neither are yet listening to the still small voice of reason.

"The CLA will continue to argue that, notwithstanding the National figures, rural communities and rural businesses need the flexibility to grow and change. This is not an argument for concreting over the countryside, but it certainly demands that we cannot preserve it in aspic and expect to see it prosper."

Forum Response: Countryside Alliance

Simon Hart, chief executive designate of the Countryside Alliance, told ePolitix.com: "Greenfield developments - which are both small and well controlled - have their place particularly as a way of alleviating the affordable housing crisis in rural areas, where small numbers of cheaper housing may be built - if required - in villages and other rural communities.

"However, brownfield development is far more sustainable through reusing old land and derelict buildings and reducing the need to build in open countryside.

"Unfortunately, at the moment there are greater incentives for developers to build on greenfield sites, despite the government's target of 60 per cent of new development being on brownfield sites.

"Greater departmental dialogue is required to ensure that one department's aims and objectives match another's, so that it is a more attractive option for developers to build on brownfield sites.

"At the moment, despite the ODPM's 60 per cent target, there are tax incentives which lend themselves to greenfield development. Other issues, such as the numbers of second homes and planning laws affecting agricultural diversification also need also need to be looked at.

"Affordable housing is a serious problem in the countryside and immediate action is required by the government to combat it.

"Rather than simply building enormous estates and increasing the size of towns in the South East as outlined in John Prescott's Sustainable Communities plan, requirements for each town and village throughout the country should be met on a local scale - by building a small number of affordable houses wherever they are needed, and ensuring that they remain affordable.

"This will help to reduce the speed at which the North-South divide is increasing - something which Prescott's plan would only widen."

Forum Response: National Farmers' Union

Andrew Clark, spokesman for the NFU, told ePolitix.com: "This argument between major housebuliders and the CRPE marginalises a major problem for those living and working in the countryside.

"The problem of land supply in the countryside is acute - many villages have tightly defined development envelopes and outside this greenfield building is on a strict exceptions basis only (ie. permission is only won because of proven local need for affordable housing or an acute business need).

"In rural areas the big housebuilders are not a major players, but planning policy is. Hence the argument overlooks the continuing need for affordable and accessible homes in the countryside."

Forum Response: Construction Products Association

Allan Wilen economics director of the Construction Products Association, told ePolitix.com: "The increase in number of housing plots held by the 15 largest house builders does not reflect a surplus of land for development as the CPRE suggest.

"The rise in their major developers reflects a number of factors including recent consolidation within the industry and the trend towards building more homes per hectare in response to government planning guidance.

"Furthermore the vast majority of these plots are at the outline stage, with developers facing lengthy and complex negotiations with the planning authorities before work can start on site.

"It is the slow and restrictive planning regime that is effectively regulating the level of new housing developments, with house builders having only limited ability to adjust housing volumes in response to changing market conditions.

"The number of English planning approvals for dwellings granted last year, at 43,900, was at similar levels to that seen in 1995 when the housing market was still shaking off the effects of the early 1990s recession.

"House builders have accordingly been wary of rapidly building out their limited landbanks of sites with full planning permissions and have focussed on higher value and specification properties. As a result the direct impact of the overall restriction on new housing volumes from the planning system is being disproportionately felt at the lower end of the housing market, exacerbating 'affordability' problems."