Suburban gardens are being "ripped up", the Conservatives claim

They claim planning rules brought in by John Prescott could spell the end for back gardens and lead to suburban neighbourhoods being concreted over.

They want an end to "rigid" planning rules which cram buildings together.

But the government, which wants 1.1m built by 2016 across England, said cutting the number of new homes would be "devastating to first-time buyers".

It has identified four areas of growth in its five-year housing plan.

These were Milton Keynes and the south Midlands, Ashford in Kent, the Thames Gateway in south Essex and north Kent, and a strip running from Peterborough to London, covering areas around Cambridge and Stansted Airport.

'Artificially inflated'

Planning guidelines are also to be updated for local councils who could turn unused industrial sites into brownfield developments, such as gardens.

And �40m will be allocated to areas promoting sustainable housing growth and regeneration.

But the Tories say there is "growing concern about how John Prescott's planning rules are leading to leafy gardens being dug up and replaced with soulless and ugly blocks of flats".

Shadow local government secretary Caroline Spelman the price of family homes was being "artificially inflated" because developers were being "forced" to build flats.

And what the public really wanted were "family homes with sufficient parking spaces and gardens for children to play in," she added.

But Labour Communities Minister Baroness Andrews said the Conservatives' proposals were "not based on fact".

'Flip-flop'

"The truth is that the proportion of homes built on residential land has dropped significantly since the late 1980s, when the definition of brownfield land was introduced under a Tory government," she said.

It was "another Cameron flip-flop", she claimed, referring to Conservative leader David Cameron.

"Six months ago he told us he wanted to ditch the Tories' nimby [not in my back yard] image - but now he's launching the ultimate nimby campaign."

Mr Cameron has already said a Conservative government would encourage the shared ownership of properties and would enable council and housing authority tenants to put their rent payments towards mortgages.