Ministers are proposing new reforms which will mean councillors must have a "presumption in favour of sustainable development" for all new planning applications. This will replace strict limits on building in rural areas that have been in place since the 1940s.
MPs hope this will solve the housing crisis and say homelessness and overcrowding could spiral out of control if the planning reforms are not agreed. But environmentalists say the Government is putting "short term financial gain ahead of everything else".
• Do you think this will ruin the countryside? Should rural Britain be protected at all costs? Is the Government putting "short-term financial gain" ahead of longer term environmental considerations?
• Or do you agree with the Coalition's reforms? Is the Government right to put people first? Will the reforms solve the housing crisis? Is this the only way to help first-time buyers and ease overcrowding? Are the opponents of the changes just NIMBYs?
Join the debate by scrolling down to post a comment below.
Here are some views from other Telegraph readers:
cal555: We need more houses, for our kids, for the homeless, for the jobless. Anyone who campaigns against these groups are plain selfish.
jaguarxk: This is a small Island not a massive land mass like Canada, Australia, USA or Russia.
slyvesterthecat: Cameron has broken the first rule of governing, Never upset the middle classes they can make your life hell.
rmacone: The campaign needs to continue. I am glad 38 degrees is campaigning now.
wehappyfew: "Its groups like the ramblers association and the WI who have kept an eye on things so we don't have to keep incessantly checking up on what private entities are getting up to. When you park up at a local beauty spot the fact that you can go for a walk on the land ,in the woods,on the coastal path, see a view, chances are, at some point, one of these local groups fought some hare brained scheme to fence it of build on it or pave over it."
amw:"Most countryside in the UK is in reality Argo-Industrial farmland with less biodiversity than the urban gardens that development will replace it with. Lets give young people, many already saddled with debt from University, a break and build lots of cheap, spacious, affordable housing on greenfield sites. "
huffnpuff:"Delegate to local people? All pigs fuelled and ready to fly? Money speaks louder than words, every rejection will be met with a new application from developers with bottomless pots of largesse. Just tale a look at how many local objections (from majorities) have been effectively ignored or ridden over. "
redfoot:"What on earth happened to Localism and the Big Society? With a planning system predicated on a default 'yes' position, any scrutiny of development by local people will be taken away.This will give carte blanche to developers to concrete over swathes of our countryside. Developers that already own hundred's of thousands of consented building plots."
Chaotopia: "If the government really wants to build new homes then they should concentrate all their resources on developing the 160,000 acres of Brown Field sites and deal with the 740,000 homes (a quarter of them in London and the South East) that remain empty in this country."
donutjimmy: "It seems the Wind In The Willows was half right. Stoats and weasels will steal our birthright. But there are MANY more in Parliament than Toad Hall."
molesey_mole:"The National Trust are being idiots. They quote the environmental bit of Cameron's letter, and have somehow bought the political spin of some sort of a "promise" to protect the countryside. However, I cannot find any sort of a "promise" in the text of the letter whether explicit or implicit."
simon_coulter: "Why do we need to unlock land when there are something like 300,000 already identified and authorised housing starts on sites yet to be built? This unlocking is starting to look as though it might be about intrusive development in sites of higher value. "
