Help stop the planning free-for-all FoE, Woodland Trust, National Trust, CPRE

Join environmentalists including Friends of the Earth who call for planning rules that take protecting our natural environment and sustainable development seriously.

The Government claims that the existing rules don't work because developers need a free reign to "build what they like, where they like, when they like." Mr Osborne and Mr Pickles said sticking with the "complicated" current system "puts at risk young people's future prosperity and quality of life"

But its proposed changes could derail the planning of new green industries and decent affordable homes - and push through short-sighted developments like supermarkets and incinerators.

We could also lose local parks, shops and allotments - and our right to a say in our communities. Some forests could be stripped of protection under planning reforms being considered by the Government, the Woodland Trust has warned.

National Trust warns planning changes could tear up countryside. London's green belt could be sacrificed to Los Angeles-style urban sprawl in the name of economic growth under sweeping reforms to the planning system unveiled by the government this week, the National Trust has warned. The 3.6 million-member organisation voiced "grave concerns" on Tuesday over government proposals to slash 1,000 pages of planning policy to just 52 pages in a move that has won the ringing endorsement of property developers.


Shaun Spiers, chief executive of the Campaign to Protect Rural England Chief Executive, said: "The Treasury's ill-informed intervention in the planning debate reinforces the sense that the government's planning reforms are more about boosting short term growth figures than about truly sustainable development."