TOWN and country dwellers are being urged to stand up and fight for the protection of the countryside or risk losing most of it within 30 years.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) today issues a call to the nation to save cherished landscapes that provide tranquillity for millions of visitors every year. The campaign coincides with a grim future portrait of rural England unless there is a sharp reversal of policy.

Under the scenario set out in a new report, Your Countryside Your Choice, based on current development trends, vast tracts of open land will disappear to create new houses, roads, runways, business parks and US-style strip malls by 2035.

Tom Oliver, head of rural policy at the CPRE, said that citizens had to understand that this picture of life in England could become a reality unless they changed attitudes and took action. He called for the formation of an army of Nimbys (not in my backyard).

He said: “Tony Blair wants to champion the ‘respect’ culture in the streets. Well what about in the countryside? If it’s right to care about the quality of the local school, the cleanliness of the local hospital or the tranquillity of the town centre on a Friday night, why is it so wrong to care about the quality of your countryside?” He accused the Government of having a blind spot when it came to protecting the countryside.

“Ministers will always deride individuals and communities who fight for the cause as Nimbys. It is the insult of choice for those who oppose destructive development. But these are the most unselfish people who are fighting for future generations as well as their own. It is important for everyone and especially people who live in urban areas who need the countryside for peace and quiet to become Nimbys,” Mr Oliver said.

The CPRE forecast is intended to provoke debate but it is also aimed at helping Margaret Beckett, the Rural Affairs Secretary, to fight the rural corner with Cabinet colleagues. The main threat identified by the CPRE is the Government’s vast house-building programme. Half a million extra homes are planned for the East of England within the next decade.

It is also concerned about a vast expansion in the road haulage industry and increasing dependence on the car, airport expansion and a dramatic decline in farming, which will lead to more intensive farming in some parts of the country and abandonment of land in other parts.

If development continues apace, the report’s vision of the countryside in 2035 is bleak.

It suggests that seven million new homes will be built in the next 30 years, creating 84 new towns the size of Milton Keynes, nearly half of them built on fields.

Just as Middlesex disappeared when it merged with London, the Home Counties of Sussex, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire will also become monotonous settlements and lose their character, it claims.

Swaths of East Anglia will “have been bludgeoned into submission”. Of Kent, the “Garden of England”, the forecast says: “Oast houses and barns survive as charming commercial premises or themed restaurants, and increasingly pitifully few remaining ancient orchards only serve to emphasise what has been lost.”

It also predicts that farming will be virtually wiped out. Urban dwellers would visit farms for “drive in” experiences.Andrew Motion, the Poet Laureate, said that the report “distils the essence of current questions about how best to manage, maintain, develop and preserve the natural environment. I urge everyone to read it and join in the debate. It’s one of the most important of our time.”

The Department for En- vironment, Food and Rural Affairs, said last night said that it did not share the CPRE’s “Doomsday” scenario. However, a spokesman said that ministers welcomed debate on an important subject and called on the nation, not just the Government, to work on all the threats identified in the report.

THE CAMPAIGN'S ACTION PLAN

End the policy of “predict and provide” for national and regional airport capacity

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