A TOTAL of 1.76 million homes, more than twice the number of households in East Anglia, will have to be built in the English countryside in the next 20 years, John Gummer, the Environment Secretary, said yesterday.
Mr Gummer said that the need to provide new homes for the 4.4 million households expected to be formed over the next 20 years - one million more than the current county plans provide for - raised "significant issues not only for us, but for our children and even our children's children".
He announced that he was raising to 60 per cent the amount of homes which would have to be accommodated on previously developed land, mostly in the towns and cities. Previously only 50 per cent has been built on redeveloped land.
The 40 per cent now to be built in the English countryside is still the equivalent of 10 cities the size of Bristol.
Mr Gummer told the Commons: "How we provide for the new homes that will be needed is something for all of us, the whole community, to consider. Our success or failure in doing so will affect the quality of our lives, the appearance of our towns and countryside, our patterns of employment and transport, and so on: in short the sort of country we wish to hand on to future generations." Some of the changes would be eminently desirable, others were "to be regretted".
He added: "At some point all of us will be touched by this issue - whether we live in a town or village which will need to expand, whether we have children growing up who will be seeking a first home of their own, or whether we live in the centre of the city which will need to accommodate new and different types of dwelling for the growing population."
Mr Gummer called on churches, businesses, the entertainment industry, schools and the media, to get involved in trying to combat some of the reasons behind the increased housing demand, such as divorce, separation and old people living alone.
