Protecting against urban sprawl

Stopping urban sprawl
It is national planning policy to keep a clear distinction between town and country.

This means recycling urban land as it becomes available by reusing empty buildings and brownfield land before developing on greenfields, thus protecting the countryside from urban sprawl and encouraging the regeneration of towns and cities.

Housing is the biggest user of land for development.

The Government has issued policies and guidance about how to promote an urban renaissance and protect greenfield sites from development.

Getting it right in your area
There are various 'planning tools' that you could explore, to see how your area can get the right planning policies on housing:

Housing land availability asessments are the means whereby land is identified for housing and replace urban capacity studies

Press for a thorough search to be made for suitable urban brownfield land as part of this assessmet.

The search should look at all sources

• Small sites
• Large sites
• Living over shops
• Empty buildings.

Assumptions behind the assessments need to be looked at critically

It is important that sources are not written off without clear justification.

For more information see CPRE's report "Untapped Potential" and the Government Guidance.

Housing needs surveys

These are usually carried out by local authority housing departments, and are crucial for local planning.

The key is to make sure that the size and types of dwelling supplied match the needs for owner occupied, market rented and affordable housing.

This is especially important as households are getting smaller.

Make sure thorough needs surveys are carried out as part of the strategic housing market assessment.

Local brownfield strategies provide a way for local authorities to work with others to tackle barriers to the redevelopment of brownfield land and reuse of buildings.

Press for a challenging but achievable brownfield target in your local development framework and for actions to deal with derelict land and to bring empty properties into use.

Windfall sites
Land allocations identify places for housing, but in urban areas a lot of development takes place on 'windfall' sites, which cannot be predicted.

You need to ask

• Has proper allowance been made in local planning policies for recycling windfall sites?
  
  
• Spare land intended for employment purposes may be available for housing and mixed-use development. Is this land being held back for industry that is unlikely to appear?

Build places where people want to live.

Stress high quality design and ensure communities are built for people from all walks of life together.

Design is not just building design, but the design of the public spaces and the spaces 'between buildings' and how these relate to one another.