The Government should create a ‘Department of Land Use’ in order to allow for a nationally co-ordinated approach to land use, campaigners argue.

A new pamphlet from the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has claimed the UK’s approach to land use is ‘fragmentary’, with different organisations responsible for different issues.

It argued this approach was failing to address the multiple problems facing the country, such as environmental degradation, rising costs and harm to health and wellbeing.

One of the pamphlet’s contributors, the UK Committee on Climate Change chair Lord Deben, recommended the creation of a Department of Land Use to reconcile the conflicting demands on how land is utilised.

‘A national land use strategy would bring treasury and infrastructure officials on board with environmentalists, and replace piecemeal erosion of the countryside with exciting projects and community trust,’ said CPRE head of government and rural affairs, Belinda Gordon.

‘Green transport networks, natural flood defences, sustainable housing developments, local food systems, more accessible parks: these can all be delivered if we get organisations working to the same ends through a national plan for the land.’