A leading property developer has claimed that the public and press are mistaken in the belief that the British countryside is being concreted over in an endless drive to build new homes.

Simon Kibblewhite, Head of FPDSavills' Chelmsford-based development team said: "There's a popular misconception that new housing is gradually covering our countryside in bricks and mortar. In Essex one might be forgiven for adopting this view as the level of activity in the county amongst house builders is probably as high as it has ever been. However, the statistics simply do not support the theory that our green fields are gradually being concreted over."

According to research from the House Builders Federation, the number of new homes built in Great Britain during 2001 fell to their lowest level in 54 years at 162,000. Completions last year actually fell to their lowest peace-time level since 1924.

Private housing completions have been reasonably stable since 1994, varying by only 2% either side of 149,000 per annum. As a result, the UK housing stock has expanded by a maximum of only 0.8% per year over the last decade. At current demolition rates new homes built today would have to last 1,400 years before it would be their turn to be pulled down! In contrast, household growth over the last 20 years has far exceeded expansion of the housing stock. By 2000 there were 4.2% fewer homes in London than households, whilst the figure for the south-east was 1.4%. Therefore house building is not actually keeping pace with household growth, despite appearances.

Finally, to dispel the myth; from 1995-1999, 54% of the land used for all new housing was already in some form of urban use or vacant undeveloped urban land. Today the percentage would be greater given the government's shift in planning policy towards a much higher proportion of brown field sites being used for development.

Approximately 6,000 ha. per year are used for housing in England, of which 2,600 ha. were previously in rural use. Therefore new housing covers an additional 0.02% of England's land area each year or 1% every 50 years. Only 0.02% of Green Belt land is taken annually for residential use and in fact nearly half of this has already been subject to some kind of previous development.

Simon Kibblewhite concludes: "People should spend less time fighting the idea of development itself and concentrate on identifying the best sites and most suitable design solutions for new housing".