Town planning

THE growing row over the Government’s proposed planning reforms has, thus far, centred on the consequences for green belt land and the English countryside. Though this issue’s importance should never be disregarded, it is also paramount that Ministers look at innovative ways to continue the renaissance of urban areas that were once blighted by poverty and crime.

With imagination, they can be transformed – such as Bradford’s Lister Mill and now Sheffield’s Park Hill flats. Once synonymous with South Yorkshire’s decline, they have the potential to typify the area’s regeneration. It must not end here. While politicans argue about quotas for new homes, they should remember that the last government called for 60 per cent of all new developments to be built on brownfield sites. It was right to do so.

For, with 150,000 acres of such land available, this could accommodate three million new homes – far more than this country requires. What is required is a framework that brings the Park Hill flats, and similar sites, into popular usage. Not only will this assist with regeneration work, but it should also ease the pressure on the countryside.