Campaigners are marking 50 years of green belt policy

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) says councils are wasting the countryside by ignoring brownfield sites and building homes too far apart.

It compared government data on how 354 councils used land during the 1990s and a similar period this century.

The worst performing 35 councils and 10 of the best have been highlighted.

CPRE said the government's planning policy PPG3 had helped regenerate towns and cities while saving the countryside from being built on.

It would be a huge mistake to use market triggers for deciding where, when and how much housing development should take place Kate Gordon, CPRE

It welcomed the improvements it had made to both the densities at which new homes are built and in the proportion of new homes developed on recycled land.

But it fears the government may radically revise the policy to take forward recommendations from the controversial Barker review of housing supply.

Councils performing poorly Mid Devon Alnwick Wansbeck South Holland Waveney Wear Valley East Riding of Yorkshire Rutland Boston North Dorset South Northamptonshire South Norfolk Harborough Breckland Torridge Eden Cherwell Sedgemoor Blyth Valley North Lincolnshire (including Scunthorpe) Stevenage Rugby Kingston-upon-Hull Redditch Stockton-on-Tees Great Yarmouth Carlisle Basingstoke and Deane Telford and Wrekin Hastings Derby Redcar and Cleveland Bedford Basildon Mansfield

As a result councils might be forced to release extra land for house building if house prices rise beyond a certain trigger point.

The CPRE says this would put more countryside at risk, and undermine urban regeneration and the progress made on recycling vacant and derelict land, while making very little difference to house prices.

Kate Gordon, CPRE national planning officer said: "It would be a huge mistake to use market triggers as the overriding rationale for deciding where, when and how much housing development should take place.

"We have an excellent policy on planning for housing in PPG3.

"Since it came into force five years ago, more homes are being built. They are also built at higher densities, and better use is being made of the swathes of vacant and derelict land that blight our towns and cities.

"The main problem has been that in some areas this policy isn't being followed - and that's what the government should be concentrating on."

The 35 councils named as performing poorly on housing density and land recycling make up the bottom tenth of its table.

They include 19 rural councils and 16 which cover larger towns and cities with a population over 75,000.