A COUNTRYSIDE charity is calling on the Government to "focus" on building the one million homes that already have planning permission.

CPRE Hampshire has written to all Hampshire MPs about the Government’s proposed planning reforms.

The charity claims that the national house building targets can be achieved "without such radical reforms" and that the focus of Government action should be to ensure that the one million homes with existing planning permission are "built out immediately".

Dee Haas, Chair of CPRE Hampshire said: "There are many aspects of the Planning for the Future White Paper that we would support.

"The ambition to bridge the generational divide; the emphasis on strict design codes; the commitment to streamlining the Local Plan process and the determination to involve many more local people and their communities into the Planning process are all welcomed.

"However, we also have substantial concerns about the proposals and many of them stem from the possibly unintended consequences of the algorithms used in the various calculations.

"These algorithms produce a number of distortions which fundamentally undermine the stated intentions of the Government’s proposals."

CPRE Hampshire claims that the proposed new standard method would shift housing numbers from the cities to the rural districts. The state that in the county, there would be increases in Winchester by 58%, East Hampshire by 50 per cent, Test Valley by 40 per cent; and decreases in Southampton by 17per cent, Portsmouth by 14 per cent.

They also believe that the proposals would make housing in Hampshire less affordable and would "deprive" the most "disadvantaged" regions on investment.

CPRE Hampshire recently attended a virtual meeting with Robert Jenrick MP, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government and Crispin Truman, CPRE Chief Executive.

The meeting with CPRE was at Robert Jenrick's request to discuss the Planning for the Future White Paper.

CPRE Hampshire is now asking to meet local MPs to discuss these points further.

CPRE Hampshire will be sending its responses to the Changes to the current planning system and Planning for the future consultations direct to the Government and will feed into CPRE’s national responses.