Good land-use planning is the unsung hero of environmental protection. It can encourage urban regeneration, curb urban sprawl, help slow the growth in road traffic, protect the beauty and tranquillity of the countryside and safeguard wildlife habitats. Effective planning is more important now than ever before with economic pressures and a growing population leading to more development intruding into the countryside. Precious Green Belt land is being eaten away despite a Government commitment to protect it. Proposed new legislation concerning the planning for major infrastructure projects presents a serious challenge to the integrity of the planning system.

CPRE believes that a healthy, thriving countryside is important for everyone, no matter where they live. Our approach to housing policy embodies this belief. Good planning should provide everyone with a decent home they can afford. While housing development can have a significant landscape impact we believe it is possible to avoid sporadic development in the countryside and the unsustainable sprawl of our towns and cities. Meeting the housing needs of rural communities is particularly important if they are to thrive. In the national context of a growing and changing population it is important to meet the need for new housing in England. This document outlines how CPRE believes this can be done without unnecessarily damaging the countryside.

Our policy on hunting with hounds.

Our policy on minerals and quarrying.

While wind energy can make an important contribution to tackling climate change, CPRE believes this should not come at the expense of the beauty, character and tranquillity of rural England. We assess wind turbine proposals for their potential impact on the landscape, taking account of their cumulative impact, and strongly resist those whose impact we consider to be unacceptable. This note explains how the planning system should enable such judgements to be made fairly and transparently.

CPRE believes there should be a moratorium on shale gas extraction (fracking) in England unless it can be clearly demonstrated that fracking would:

- help secure the radical reductions in carbon emissions required to comply with planning policy and meet legally binding climate change targets;

- not lead to unacceptable cumulative harm, whether for particular landscapes or on the English countryside as a whole, and

- be carefully controlled by effective systems of regulation and democratic planning, which are adequately resourced at both local and national levels.

Download CPRE's policy on shale gas (fracking) to find out more.

CPRE’s Policy Guidance Note on solar energy sets out our position, whilst the practical campaign tools document provides information to help evaluate and shape solar farm proposals. CPRE would like to see greater use made of  commercial roofs and brownfield land unsuitable for housing for solar electricity — an area at least twice the size of London is available, representing a huge amount of untapped solar energy potential. This would increase solar generation whilst protecting the countryside. However, the Government needs to do much more to help realise this huge potential. Our policy guidance does not rule out solar farms, but it does say they should meet important criteria — on protecting landscape and heritage, amenity and the best agricultural land, and maximise biodiversity.

Find out more
Making solar work for town and countryside

This policy guidance note promotes the kind of rural economic activity CPRE want to see in the countryside.

Our policy on transport.