SCREENED on tea-time TV recently - Channel 4 or 5, I forget which - was a house-swap series based on holidays.

An incidental remark in one programme illustrated something that had nothing to do with the series. An American couple, who had exchanged their home for one in England, were making a return visit to Britain after 25 years. Asked if she saw any difference, the wife replied: "It's harder to find attractive villages and unspoilt countryside.''

We all know the causes. Industrial estates, business parks (what's the difference?), retail parks, new housing, power lines, phone masts, wind farms - there's no doubt the erosion of the countryside has quickened apace in the last 20 years. Outside the museum landscapes of the national parks it is indeed harder to find unravaged countryside and villages that retain their vernacular character.

At its lowest, this matters because of the off-putting effect on tourists like the Americans on that TV programme. A point will be reached where the long stretches of Britain between the tourist parts becomes so degraded that the overseas tourists won't come. And even the Brits who holiday at home will be more inclined to go abroad.

But a good-looking countryside has more benefits than this. It is an antidote to the nerve-wracking jangle of modern life. As the intense opposition to any plan to build in a green belt shows, people value open space, especially with trees, grass and hedgerows, near their homes. And because it is the backdrop to millions of lives, this "everyday" countryside arguably deserves every bit as much care as the "showpiece" national parks.

But its days look numbered. For New Labour intends greatly to slacken the planning controls that have kept the worse excesses, or many of them, at bay since 1947. The public's right to oppose major developments like airports, power stations (probably including wind farms), and motorways is being removed.

The public's input will be confined to details, like landscaping or perhaps the position of access roads. Meanwhile, decisions on the siting of industry and large housing developments will be shifted from local authorities to unelected regional bodies. There will even be zones where industry can develop without putting in the detailed plans now necessary.

All part of Tony Blair's "project" to modernise Britain, these proposals look like the final step towards fulfilling the bleak vision of Britain anticipated by Philip Larkin in the 1975: "first slum of Europe".

Britain is a small island whose countryside, except for the highlands of Scotland, is also small scale and intimate. But, a lattice mast poking up here, a transport warehouse, complete with floodlights, allowed there, - the fragile ambience soon goes.

During the Second World War, public affection for the countryside was exploited to boost the war effort. "It's Your Country - Fight For It Now" urged the slogan on a poster that showed a family silhouetted against a Biblical dawn on swelling downland. How ironic that, under a Labour Government, the fight to save that symbol of what was at stake in the war is now more necessary than ever.

Published: Wednesday, March 6, 2002