Calls for 're-greening of England' » Housing » 24dash.com

A "re-greening of England" with some farms and greenbelt land converted into a mixture of woodland and housing, is proposed in a new report.

The shake up in land use is suggested in the study "Land Economy" by Mischa Balen of the Adam Smith Institute.

It claims that much agricultural land is either low quality scrubland, or is intensively farmed in environmentally damaging ways.

The report says modern farming techniques involving intensive use of fertilisers and pesticides can turn huge swathes of land into monoculture wastelands which are ugly to look at and don't provide suitable habitats for wildlife.

It also says planning system precludes development and restricts the supply of housing which excludes many would-be first time buyers from the market.

Mr Balen suggests that some farms and greenbelt should be converted into a mixture of woodland and housing saying: "If some of these were converted to sympathetic development consisting of 90% woodland, including small lakes and rivers and 5% each for housing and supporting infrastructure, each farm whose use was changed in this way, would yield almost 200,000 square metres (2.15 million sq ft) of new woodland, together with 140 average sized new homes."

He proposes that 3% of farmland is developed in this way over a ten year period, yielding about 950,000 new houses and almost 130,000 hectares of new woodland, roughly an 11% increase in the wooded cover of England and Wales.

Not only would this break the logjam that denies home ownership to so many young couples, it would represent a net gain in environmental quality, he said.

"None of these new homes would be overlooked by existing houses," he added.

"Rather they would be nestled in among new woodland. Current homeowners would not face a view altered by new buildings. On the contrary, they would see the ugly monoculture fields replaced by natural woods, carefully planted to provide a mixture of different types of trees and undergrowth.

"The fields so barren of insect, bird and animal life, would be replaced by woods rich in biodiversity and providing a habitat for birds and small mammals."

The Adam Smith Institute said this kind of sympathetic development is in tune with Conservative leader David Cameron's recent remarks foreshadowing a new approach to planning policy, when he asked how society could bridge the widening gulf between those who benefit from being on the property ladder and those who are kept off.

Mr Balen said the laws relating to nuisance protect people from having inappropriate development nearby, whereas the present restrictive planning rules effectively stifle the rural economy by making it difficult to undertake any development at all.

He said: "Such development wins on every count, less chemical pollution, more pleasant to look at, more conducive to bird and animal life, more

Copyright Press Association 2006