Member News
By Tony Grew - 14th March 2011
A leading rural protection charity has welcomed the Labour party's announcement of a policy review on "the future challenges facing rural Britain".
On Friday shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh said the review will look at Britain's relationship with the natural world and "the challenges facing rural communities from affordable housing, rising living costs, the future of farming and 'green' jobs".
It is part of Labour leader Ed Miliband's wider policy review and will be led by an "independent and non-partisan" working group.
NFU president Peter Kendall, MD of Cooperative Farms Christine Tacon, RSPB chief executive Mike Clarke and TUC deputy general secretary Francis O'Grady have all agreed to sit on the working group.
CPRE, which campaigns for "a sustainable future for the English countryside", welcomed the policy review, but pointed to the "many questions that Labour needs to address".
"The economic situation is exerting a heavy pressure on the countryside, placing a strain on local services, and leading to pressure for relaxed planning controls at all levels in a mistaken belief that this will boost economic growth - in fact, good planning drives sustainable growth, which should be a key goal of sound environmental policy," said CPRE's Adam Royle.
He said the coalition government's localism plans should hand planning decisions to local communities, but green belts, nationally designated landscapes and high value farmland must be protected from house-building.
"Our countryside is increasingly fragmented and under pressure from development and climate change, and policies to regenerate it on a broad scale are needed if it is to thrive, and maintain its beauty, diversity and rich wildlife for all to enjoy in the long term," Royle said.
"We hope that Labour, in addition to coming forward with its own proposals, will press the government to make the forthcoming natural environment white paper the defining prospectus for ambitious conservation at the landscape scale."
CPRE said it wants all parties to develop "positive, ambitious policies which place a high premium on the diversity, beauty and tranquillity of our countryside".
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