‘How I’m working to protect agricultural land from development’ by Buckingham MP

A large part of the Buckingham Constituency is surrounded by agricultural land, and I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about what I am doing to protect it.

For months I have been working on the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, to pilot through an amendment to make food security and food production a material concern in the planning process to better protect our agricultural land from development – be that housing, huge solar farms, or commercial.

After negotiating with Secretary of State Michael Gove, and the Housing Minister, I was delighted that the government have agreed – for the first time ever – to include food security and better protection for agricultural land in the new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

I believe this is a huge step forward for farming, land use and good production in our country. Now the changes to new NPPF are being consulted on at the moment, to lock in much stronger protections for agricultural land from development.

Food security is hugely important, but if agricultural land is used for housing, commercial development and other things like solar farms, our self-sufficiency to produce food will clearly fall.

A key election commitment I made in 2019 was to do all I could to prevent overdevelopment, particularly on greenfield sites – and I am hopeful the changes I secured in the new NPPF will go a long way to protecting our Buckinghamshire countryside and most importantly, farmland.