The Observer: Planning Changes

(Mary Creagh, Labour's environment spokesman)

Link to The Observer

"Campaigners and grassroots Tories fear excessive development under the new Draft National Planning Policy Framework, which was published in July and features a presumption in favour of 'sustainable development"'

"Fiona Reynolds, director of the 3.5 million-member National Trust, has called for a fundamental rethink of the reforms. 'We firmly believe that the government has got its proposals for planning reform wrong,' she said.

"As the Observer reports today, Britain's leading countryside campaigner, the author Bill Bryson, has now added his voiced to the chorus, increasing the pressure for a U-turn."

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(Bill Bryson, president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England)

Link to The Observer

"Britain's leading countryside campaigner, Bill Bryson, has joined a growing wave of opposition to government moves to shake up planning laws.

"As groups from the National Trust to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds line up against proposals to ease new development across the country, Bryson told the Observer he was deeply concerned by the direction of policy.

" 'The government's good intentions risk being undermined by the talk of economic growth at any cost,' said the American writer, who champions the English countryside and is president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE). 'We are deeply worried to learn that environmental laws are regarded as red tape and that the planning system might be weakened to allow for more development'."