Prime minister David Cameron has received a letter from 15 of Britain's largest property companies offering support for the Draft National Planning Policy Framework which strips out most existing planning guidance and would put an end to all brownfield-first policies.
The 15 say they own around £150bn of commercial property assets and believe the current system is slow, unresponsive to their needs and excessively bureaucratic.
They say the Draft does not represent a fundamental shift in the nature of national policy and gives importance to conservation of green space, protection of town centres and promotion of good design.
"We believe the ‘presumption in favour of sustainable development' will make a substantial difference to the speed and efficiency with which the planning system is administered, will encourage local authorities to get on with the preparation of sound evidence based local plans and, where they have failed to do so, will provide a national framework for judging the sustainability of development proposals," says the letter.
The companies attack opponents of the reforms like the Campaign to Protect Rural England and National Trust and say their claims are seriously misleading and based on misunderstanding.
British Property Federation chief executive Liz Peace who also signed the letter said that what was needed was a sensible debate.
"Claims that our cherished countryside is to be slathered in concrete misunderstand the system that has been proposed and the safeguards that it will contain," she said.
"Councils - not developers - will have the power to dictate where development will go, and planning applications that deviate from these local plans will quite rightly be thrown in the bin."
Countryside Land Association deputy president Harry Cotterell said his Association's members live and work in rural areas and do not want it concreted over.
"The Draft NPPF provides a streamlined and less bureaucratic way of achieving economic and social success, while at the same time protecting the needs of the environment," he said.
Estates Business Group secretary Richard Wilkin asserted that the status quo is not an option.
"We believe the proposed planning changes strike the right balance between a pro-growth and streamlined system that will help revive our economy while offering adequate protection to the green spaces and countryside that landowners and communities want to see protected," he said.
