Green belt protests grow

Two Labour MPs added their voices to the growing clamour for the protection of the green belt yesterday, urging the Government to scale down its house-building plans.

David Drew and Paddy Tipping said that they hoped the Government would listen to the countryside and halt plans to build a further 4.4 million homes over the next 25 years.

But Nick Raynsford, the housing minister, dismissed suggestions that the green belt was under threat, insisting the Government's house-building plans were no different to those of previous governments.

The rising number of people living alone or without their partners is one of a number of factors blamed for the increasing demand for new housing.

Environmentalists want all new housing to be built in inner cities, so- called brownfield sites, rather than on out-of-town greenfield sites.

Estimates put the number of new houses needed in the next 25 years at more than 4 million.

Mr Drew said he wanted to see the Government scale down its house-building plans and he said that many other Labour MPs shared his view.

"The numbers are growing all the time, I do believe it's hundreds of Labour MPs," he told BBC television's On the Record.

Mr Drew, MP for Stroud, is spearheading a new all-party group to put pressure on the Government to reduce the number of houses set to be built over the next 25 years.

"We would hope that there will be the start of a national debate ... We would like MPs to join that debate," he said.

And Mr Tipping, who is MP for Sherwood, said on the same BBC programme: "It's a timebomb that's been ticking quietly for some time.

"The ticking's getting louder, and now the actual sites are being examined it's about to explode and local people who are affected are beginning to explode and say: 'We're not having houses in the green fields in the countryside around us'."

He added: "Rural Britain has been critical of the new Labour government.

"They say that the Government isn't listening to them, they say there's been a ban on firearms, they're concerned about a possible ban on fox hunting and this is another touchstone issue that the Labour Party needs to consider carefully."