10.3 Natural Environment and Rural Life

10.3.1. New Towns

10.3.1.1. To ease the housing crises and increase social housing – 5 new 300,000 hometowns will be developed within the current countryside in addition to brownfields sites.

10.3.1.2. To balance the extra use of the countryside – inner city housing will be removed and replaced by a green park and common land.

10.3.1.3. Land returned to the community as common land – all fences will be abolished, and the right to roam will be established.


10.3.2. Wildlife and open spaces

10.3.2.1 Protect, expand, properly fund and improve non-car access to our National Parks

10.3.2.2. Reduce Greenhouse gases through improved land management.

10.3.2.3. Complete the coastal path, introduce a fuller Right to Roam and a new designation of national Nature Parks to protect up to a million acres of accessible green space valued by local communities.

10.3.2.4. Place the management of public forests on a sustainable footing, in line with the recommendations of the independent Panel on Forestry and plant at least an additional tree for each child born - about 750,0000 every year - as part of a major afforestation plan.


10.3.3. Rural Life

10.3.3.1. Develop the Community Budgets model for use in rural areas to combine services, encouraging the breaking down of boundaries between different services. This will help keep rural services like GP surgeries, pharmacies, post offices and libraries open by enabling them to cooperate, share costs and co-locate in shared facilities

10.3.3.2. Placing the Natural Capital Committee on a statutory footing to provide advice to the government on the state of England’s natural assets including forests, rivers, land, minerals and oceans.

10.3.3.3. A requirement for government to set out a 25-year plan for recovering nature, with annual updates to Parliament, including how to reverse the decline of UK species and their habitats and ensure that bees and other insects are able to fulfil their important role as crop pollinators

10.3.3.4. The introduction of a new Public Sector Sustainability Duty, requiring steadily higher green criteria in public procurement policy, and placing requirements on public authorities to act in a sustainable manner.

10.3.3.5. Implementation of the findings of the Independent Panel on Forestry, creating a new public body, free from political interference and securely funded, to own and manage the national forests