Daily Telegraph: "Planning minister’s war on the countryside"

"Property developers have been privately promised that planning laws will be liberalised again within weeks, to allow them to begin a house-building boom backed by this week’s Budget.

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"Nick Boles, the planning minister, attended a meeting with some of the country’s biggest property developers hours after George Osborne’s speech on Wednesday, in which he told them he was prepared for an acrimonious battle with countryside campaigners.

"The Telegraph has obtained a recording of the meeting, in which Mr Boles discloses that he is poised to axe the planning permission requirement for many developments. He indicates that the main purpose of a £15.5 billion government package to support homebuyers is to create a building boom."