Government planning rules will inflict “an avalanche of new development” on Berkshire

The Government’s new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), published last week, is “a recipe for disaster” and will inflict “an avalanche of new development” on Berkshire.

West Berkshire has been given a 1,070 a year target. Bracknell Forest 766, Reading 1,028, Slough 808, Windsor & Maidenhead 1,449 and Wokingham 1,336.

Countryside charity Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) says under the NPPF’s ‘Standard Method’ for calculating new housebuilding targets, thousands of extra houses will need to be built every year throughout Berkshire, in addition to their current housing targets - many of them on green spaces and open countryside, including the Green Belt.

And now Newbury MP Lee Dillon has also weighed in to the row.

He has criticised Labour for “ignoring local communities like ours in West Berkshire”.

He emphasised the importance of integrating local services with new housing developments and called for a greater focus on addressing the lack of social housing in Newbury and the surrounding areas.

Mr Dillon said: “The new homes we need in Newbury must be genuinely affordable and community-led, not dictated from Whitehall.

“Any new housing must be built with the right infrastructure, including GPs, schools, and reliable public transport, to truly serve our community.

“In Newbury, there are vulnerable families in urgent need of a safe and warm home.

"To deliver homes at the pace we need, local communities must be part of the process. We need to address the care crisis, move families out of temporary accommodation, and provide better opportunities for younger generations.

"Britain’s housing crisis cannot be solved without tackling the desperate lack of social housing. This announcement from the Government fails to address the root problem.

"Communities, not distant decision-makers, are best placed to deliver the homes and services we urgently need.”

CPRE is warning that “huge swathes of Berkshire’s countryside” could end up being concreted over.

“This is an incredibly very short-sighted policy,” said CPRE Berkshire secretary Gloria Keene.

“It will do irreparable harm to our natural environment, our wildlife and biodiversity, and to local people’s quality of life.

“It also means losing farmland at a time when we should be protecting agricultural land for the sake of food security and sustainability.

“The scale of new development that the Government wants to impose on Berkshire’s districts will be utterly devastating for local communities. How can anyone be seriously proposing to build thousands of new homes every year in Berkshire when there is not the infrastructure or public services to support this rapid expansion of the local population?”

The new annual housing targets for the six Berkshire local authorities are mandatory and will have to be followed by the local councils in all these areas.

Under the new NPPF, the Berkshire boroughs that are closer to London and within the Metropolitan Green Belt will have to ‘review’ their Green Belt countryside and redesignate some of it as ‘Grey Belt’ (or ‘lower performing Green Belt’) so that it can be built on.

CPRE points out that when London’s Green Belt was created 70 years ago, to prevent urban sprawl, it was intended to be permanent.

The idea behind it was to steer new development towards major towns and cities rather than allowing this development to spill out into the countryside.

In addition to the new threat to eastern Berkshire, villages in the more rural west of the Royal County, including land close to the North Wessex Downs National Landscape, also face being “over-developed and urbanised” according to CPRE.

Ms Keene added: “The whole policy is illogical. The Government is giving a free pass to London and the big cities, which, bizarrely, have been given lower development targets under this new NPPF, while at the same time demanding that counties like Berkshire take far more than their proper share of new housing. That is neither fair nor sustainable.”

West Berkshire Council has been approached for comment as has Olivia Bailey, MP for Reading West and Mid Berkshire.