Campaign to Protect Rural England: Devon

Welcome to the Devon Branch. We campaign for a sustainable future for the English Countryside, a vital but often undervalued environmental, economic and social asset to the nation. We are there to support the farming community and those whose livelihoods depend on the countryside, to encourage sensible and sustainable development, to campaign for rural affordable housing, for better transport and an approach to renewable energy, waste management and industrial development that delivers much needed employment without despoiling the countryside. Devon is a huge county and we have nine District Groups who monitor most planning applications that affect the countryside. If you need help or an explanation you may find it on this website, if not your local district Chairman should be your first port of call.

CPRE Devon has a “Branch Plan ” for the period 2012 - 2017. This sets out our aims for the way ahead and will govern the way we do business in the future. We provide, through this website, a universal service for those interested in all aspects of this beautiful, largely rural county. However, a glance at our “Campaigns Page” will immediately demonstrate the sheer weight of planning applications with which we have to deal. It is no accident that these arise where they do. Devon has 59% of its countryside without any form of “Designation” and, therefore, protection from planning applications for development. The two maps opposite demonstrate this all too clearly. Some of these issues, particularly Waste Management, Housing, Transport and Renewable Energy have more than “local” ramifications and some are part of our regional and national infrastructure. Dealing with these larger-than-local issues is both time consuming and difficult. We need people with particular expertise, or experience in these disciplines and who are interested in our aims, to volunteer their services from time to time so that we can be more effective. If you are interested in the countryside, the environment or have some particular expertise or experience on which we could draw, we would welcome your help and support. Join us by contacting Marion Trotter at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or give your local District chairman a call. Our aim is to protect all that is best in Devon and we need all the help we can get.

This is a fully inter-active website, designed to help both our small staff of volunteers and the visitor to understand what is going on and to help you find out more about the major issues of the day. If you are new to this site and need some help go to Website Help above.

CPRE National Office, in combination with the National Trust, the RSPB and others, including the Daily Telegraph “Hands off our Land” campaign, is demanding that the Government should modify its proposed National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). We and many others feel that the Planning System with all its faults has over the years allowed us to have some sensible control over developments in the countryside, has created the Green Belts, National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and many designated areas of Ancient Woodland and Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). The proposed NPPF aims to speed up development and benefit the economy by assuming that the default position for future requests for development should be “Yes”. In Devon, as this map shows, there are large areas, particularly in West and Mid Devon as well as in Torridge largely free of such designations. A look at the “Campaigns Tab” shows all too clearly why these areas have become the focus of new development.

This policy, allied to the Chancellor’s “Drive for Growth” and a complete re-write of the Planning System is likely to produce a rash of applications for development on Greenfield sites that were hitherto protected in some way. The NPPF “Impact Assessment” states amongst other things, that “Local Councils should grant permission where the local plan is absent, silent, indeterminate or where relevant policies are out of date.” Many local plans, part of the current Local Development Framework (LDF) in Devon, are in one or other of these categories and will, in any event have to be updated to meet the new criteria. The new “sustainability” criteria would appear to be meaningless in its practical application. CPRE Devon will remain true to its beliefs that growth can be achieved without increased urban sprawl, ribbon development and the misuse of the countryside, increasingly a rare and beautiful asset for all of us.