CPA Reports
We occasionally write and commission our own reports on topics that we think are particularly relevant to the planning system, nature and the environment.
We share these reports with our supporters, the media, other organisations and Members of Parliament. Our Homes for Everyone report was shared by over 12,000 people to their own MPs.
CPA Policy Document: Data Centres - July 2026
We recognise that data centres support public services, commerce, research and the digital economy. Nevertheless, their national importance must not permit their environmental and infrastructure costs to be transferred to host communities or the public purse.
Large data centres are intensive industrial developments. They can occupy extensive sites, operate continuously, consume substantial quantities of electricity and water, generate persistent mechanical noise and waste heat, require substations and backup generators, and introduce large buildings and security lighting into landscapes that may previously have been relatively tranquil dark skies in rural areas. Water UK1 has issued a warning that, “A critical policy gap exists as current national water resource plans, including those finalised in 2025 by water companies, do not adequately account for the burgeoning demand from infrastructure such as AI data centres. This oversight risks intensifying water stress in already vulnerable regions.”
We therefore ask the Government to introduce a National Data Centre Planning and Environmental Standard, applying to all new data centres and major extensions. The new National Policy Statement for Data Centres should include this standard.
CPA Councillors Briefing: How to Stop Government Harming Nature (but Still Solve the Housing Crisis) - June 2026
This briefing sets out the case against uncontrolled greenfield development and summarises the tools available to councillors to protect green spaces, prioritise brownfield land, and ensure any new development genuinely serves communities. This matters to voters. In April 2026 over 220 community groups participated in our National Day of Action for nature, parks and greenspaces, demonstrating the importance of protecting our environment to voters.
CPA Report: Who is Paying for Unsustainable Development - March 2026
Taxpayers, communities and nature are currently paying the price for poor planning decisions by councils and the Planning Inspectorate leading to a flood of unsustainable development. Despite the government’s assertion in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) that policy requires plan-led sustainable development, this is largely a myth. The reality is that much of the proposed housing growth will be addressed by ad-hoc, speculative developer-led schemes (a report from the Competition and Markets Authority found that around “60% of all houses built in 2021 to 2022 were delivered by speculative private development”). Because the delivery of genuinely sustainable development is not currently a material consideration when making planning decisions, CPA has developed a clear definition, which we would like to see incorporated into the next iteration of the NPPF.
CPA Report: Besieged by B8 Warehouses - December 2025
Within the UK planning system, the B8 Use Class refers to properties that are designed for both the safekeeping of goods (storage) and the efficient movement and dispatch of items (distribution).
There can be many different types of facilities within these development schemes but typically they include very large warehouses (fondly known as mega-sheds).
Currently though residents are paying the price for poor planning decisions by councils and the Planning Inspectorate.
We recognise that B8 warehousing facilities play a critical role in the supply chain to meet the growing demands of e-commerce and fast-paced retail industries. Maintaining efficient logistics does not, however, need to destroy the lives of communities or cause a further substantial decline in our ecology and biodiversity.
Because the UK has so little focus on sustainable freight transport, very few of these sites are in truly sustainable locations. This results in huge numbers of heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) using local and national road networks, 24 hours a day, every single day. This is not good news for the environment, for our NHS, for communities or for nature.
CPA Report: Veering Off Plan - November 2025
In its efforts to address housing affordability, the Government has set unprecedented targets without a clear roadmap outlining how it expects (the private sector) to deliver it. Our report investigates the economics of why the government’s ‘Build Baby Build’ mantra won’t work.
In the run up to the November 2025 budget, there was a growing queue outside Number 11 waiting to issue warnings that efforts to boost housebuilding are veering off plan and that the Office for Budgetary Responsibility (OBR)’s forecasts may be optimistic. These warnings from the heart of the housing sector reflected concerns that poorly specified targets reliant upon simplified diagnoses are neither credible nor productive.
The evidence clearly suggests that Planning reform alone is insufficient without investment in local authority capacity, infrastructure, and delivery mechanisms. The socio-economic impacts of housebuilding are contingent on actual build-out rates and sales, not just permissions. These continue to be constrained by multiple factors on both the supply side and the demand side.
Rather than trot out tropes of ‘build baby build’, and ‘beat the blockers’, that serve only to alienate and exclude, the Government could perhaps listen to these voices from across the industry and across the country and engage to create an inclusive and realistic roadmap.
CPA Report: Greying the Green Belt - October 2025
CPA has released a report on how ‘grey belt’ rules will cover swathes of Green Belt in concrete, warning
”This is not targeted regeneration. It is open season”.
Our new report, ‘Greying the Green Belt: The unnecessary making of a grey, unpleasant land’, reveals the alarming scale and consequences of a policy shift that is quietly reclassifying swathes of England’s countryside as ‘grey belt’.
Despite promises from Sir Keir Starmer that “ugly, disused” land, such as abandoned petrol stations and car parks, would be prioritised, the reality is starkly different. Planning inspectors are overturning local decisions, and developers are being handed a blank cheque to build on land that, until recently, would have been deemed inappropriate.
The report:
- Sets out nine case studies which are the tip of the iceberg, but demonstrate that productive farmland and village edge countryside are already at risk
- Notes findings by CPRE Hertfordshire that, in Hertfordshire alone, more than 835 hectares of Green Belt are under threat.
- Notes that Hertsmere Borough Council has seen a 63% rise in major Green Belt applications in 2025, with most citing ‘grey belt’ justification.
- Cites a report that over 30,000 sites across England could meet ‘grey belt’ criteria.
- Launches a Grey Belt Tracker that enables communities to report development proposals on Green Belt land near them.
Chairman, Rosie Pearson, said, “The grey belt rules are a disaster for Green Belt countryside. The rules, brought in last year, now allow development on land that would have been considered inappropriate previously. The so-called sustainability criteria will, in practice, allow car-dependent sprawl with little strategic transport planning that blows our national carbon budget. Our Green Belts will be unrecognisable in a few short years if the policy is not reversed.”
The report calls on the Government to:
1. Reverse the grey belt rules with immediate effect.
2. Stop the land grab. Adopt a ‘greenfield last’ sequential test policy under the ‘Homes for Everyone’ approach. There are over 3 million potential homes on brownfield land, in empty properties and derelict commercial and public buildings and in unbuilt planning permissions. There is no need to build on our countryside.
CPA Report: Homes for Everyone - February 2025
Our report ‘Homes for Everyone’. with foreword by Chris Packham, challenges the government’s proposed changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which would force councils to accept development on green spaces to meet nationally-set goals, and allow objections based on protecting nature to be overruled. It would also reclassify ‘grey belt’ land within the Green Belt. The report is available and there is a link to email your own MP at homes.foreveryone.org
Drawing on analysis from leading planners, environmental scientists, and housing experts, we argue that the government’s plans, taken alongside its New Towns programme, will have profoundly damaging consequences for Britain’s countryside and its efforts to reach Net Zero, while doing little to lower prices or address the chronic shortage of social housing that has left 150,000 children currently living in temporary accommodation.
Building on green spaces would destroy vital natural defences against climate change, including carbon sinks such as trees, hedges, and soil, while directly threatening wildlife habitats. The government’s drive to sacrifice Britain’s green spaces in pursuit of its housebuilding targets would also increase pollution. Research also shows that building 300,000 homes a year, even with an energy efficiency drive, would use up the entirety of the UK’s carbon budget by 2050.
Instead, we argue that not a single green space needs to be lost to housing, pointing to the millions of homes available on brownfield land, in empty, derelict houses and commercial buildings, and in the nation’s 26 million spare bedrooms.
Chris Packham, Wildlife TV Presenter & Campaigner, said: “We have a housing crisis, there’s no doubt about that, but we have a biodiversity crisis too and that situation is critical. The Green Belt is incredibly important, it was designed to stop urban sprawl and enhance the quality of people’s lives. We need to think more creatively about how we can design and build good quality, affordable housing with communities and nature in mind.”
Rosie Pearson, Co-Founder of the Community Planning Alliance, added: “This is a litmus test for the new Labour government which, despite being hellbent on hitting its sky-high, developer-led housing targets, must not sacrifice the environment. The vast majority of UK voters believe it’s important to protect nature and green spaces, which should be a last resort only for housebuilding. Our ‘Homes for Everyone’ report demonstrates that there are clear ways to meet housing needs without destroying the countryside or worsening climate change.”
New polling by More in Common commissioned for this report reveals overwhelming public support for green space protection.
- 78% of people believe it is important for the government’s housebuilding strategy to protect nature and green spaces, only four per cent believe it is not important.
- Support is consistent among Labour (83%), Conservative (86%), Liberal Democrat (85%), Reform (83%) and Green Party (84%) voters.
- 69% support a ‘brownfield-first’ policy, with just 6% opposing.
CPA is proposing a six-point strategy for government and councils, including:
- Update brownfield land registers and prioritise suitable sites for housing. CPRE’s Reports suggest enough land exists for over 1.2 million homes, with additional potential for more than 100,000 homes above public car parks, according to Knight Frank
- Bring empty homes back into use. Over 1.5m unoccupied dwellings could be retrofitted or renovated to avoid needless carbon emissions associated with new construction
- Review unused commercial and public buildings and convert them into residential units. Currently 165,000 privately-owned commercial and business premises remain empty
- Better promote its £7,500 tax-free ‘Rent a Room Scheme’. Renting out just 1.74% of 26 million empty bedrooms could see rent prices return to 2017 levels
- Adopt density principles in local plans. It would be possible to save 42,000 hectares, an area the size of the Isle of Wight
- The government must focus on the one million homes that have been granted planning permission but remain unbuilt
Do you have or know of any resources that should be included in this library? If so, please contact us today!