COUNTRYSIDE campaigners say they are worried about Hampshire’s green spaces after a controversial planning shake-up came into force.

The new framework has been slammed by Hampshire Conservative MPs who fear the new rules will pave the way for unwanted developments.The slimmed-down guidelines would create a “presumption in favour of sustainable development”, which critics say will sway decisions in developers’ favour.

Chancellor George Osborne claimed global businesses had diverted investments that would have brought hundreds of jobs to Britain to countries like Germany and the Netherlands, as they could not get planning permission here.

Romsey and Southampton North MP Caroline Nokes, New Forest East MP Julian Lewis, Steve Brine (Winchester), Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) and George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) all signed a recent open letter to the Prime Minister urging him to amend the draft proposals.

Ms Nokes said she had “grave concerns” about the change, saying the new policy did not compel councils to target brownfield land first.

She said: “Eighty per cent of my constituency has no specific protection, it is regarded as ‘ordinary countryside’. You only have to go to the countryside in Romsey and Southampton North to see it is anything but ordinary.”

Dr Lewis added: “This may bring in all sorts of things that could disfigure the landscape.”

A spokesman for the Hampshire branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England said: “We will have to wait until next Tuesday when the final planning framework is to be published to see if the voices of reason in Government will yet win out.

“From the Chancellor’s words we fear the long-standing protection for the wider countryside will be abandoned.”

Treasury Minister David Gauke told the Daily Echo: “There are instances where businesses say they wanted to invest but planning rules got in the way. It is about striking the right balance – and we don’t think the right balance is there at the moment.”