CHANGES to planning rules, introducing 'presumption in favour of sustainable development' to force through more house building, have turned up the heat on communities to adopt local plans, setting out where building can take place or risk indiscriminate development.

Drawing criticism this week from one of the prime minister's senior advisers, Nadim Zahawi, as bringing "harm to the countryside" by opening up previously protected farmland and greenfield sites for housing, the new policy is exposing communities like Alton to unwanted levels of development.

With pressure from speculative developers to build more than 1,000 new homes on greenfield land in Alton over the next 15 years, on top of the 1,031 already planned, and way above the 700 greenfield homes proposed for Alton in East Hampshire District Council's emerging joint core strategy, the race is on to produce a neighbourhood plan to introduce a degree of control and preference over how the town is to grow.

For full story, see this week's Alton Herald.