Liberal Democrats have promised to equalize VAT on new build and repair in a specific commitment to encourage development on brownfield land.
The commitment comes in the Liberal Democrat Policies for the Environment election document.
The document has little to say about spatial planning but says the Party would abolish the Infrastructure Planning Commission and return planning, including housing targets to "local people".
It promises a third-party right of appeal in plan departures but its only other comment on the brownfield:greenfield debate is a promise to end so-called "garden grabbing" by defining them as greenfield sites in "planning law" so they cannot be so easily built over.
"Something really exciting is happening in British politics," said Nick Clegg at the document's launch.
"This is a huge opportunity to set Britain on the road to a prosperous and green future."
The Party would introduce landscape-scale policies to restore water channels, rivers and wetlands to reduce flooding and stop housing development in high flood risk areas as part of a wider approach to managing landscapes on a big scale.
"We will introduce landscape-scale policies, with measurable objectives which could include things like the promotion of biodiversity, the restoration and protection of natural features, increased tranquillity, and the encouragement of local food production and the protection," says the document.
"We will create a new designation - similar to site of special scientific interest status - to protect green areas of particular importance or value to the community."
