The government should not overlook the role of rural settlements in tackling the national housing shortage, according to the Country Land and Business Association.
The Association said the Deputy Prime Minister’s call for more garden cities in the Home Counties were not the only answer to the lack of housing.
"We understand the Government is worried about the slow progress of localism but Nick Clegg has failed to recognise that without growth, the lack of new housing means rural settlements are losing services to the extent they have become unsustainable" said CLA President Harry Cotterell.
Cotterell also said a suggestion from the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England that housing should be delivered exclusively through urban regeneration and on brown field sites is not feasible.
"Austerity and the national deficit mean that the regeneration budgets once held by the Homes and Communities Agency and English Partnerships are no longer in place" he said.
"With a need for more than 200,000 homes each year, it will be necessary to use some green field sites, including land for strategic urban extensions and for critically needed rural-based housing of all types."
