THE government's political intentions may be to avoid the charge of wrecking the countryside, but the practical effect of its plan to construct 60 per cent of new homes on "brownfield" urban sites will have far more benefits than just those of saving fields from concrete.

For, as East Lancashire has seen by its determined efforts to provide new housing on old sites, one major impact is that of preventing the so-called "doughnutting" of inner urban areas - the effect of towns being dead in the middle after business hours because no-one lives there.

And by building on urban sites, communities are renewed, not destroyed.

Infrastructure costs are kept down and traffic journeys reduced.

But it is not just a question of identifying the potential urban housing sites, the government must make them attractive to builders by scrapping the VAT on them and leaving tax penalties in place on the greenfield sites.

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