A leading countryside campaign group called today for green belt areas - including York's - to be strengthened as pressure builds for more housing development.

The Council for the Protection of Rural England spoke of its fears that York's draft green belt might be "nibbled away" on both its inner and outer boundaries during an ongoing review by City of York Council.

Marcus Dangerfield, chairman of the organisation's York and North Yorkshire branches, said there was constant pressure to build new homes not only for York workers but also for commuters to jobs in West Yorkshire and further afield.

This was threatening "our green and pleasant land."

Nationwide, the organisation's deputy director, Tony Burton, said the belts had served England's towns and countryside well for 60 years and should remain central to the new government's policies for curbing urban sprawl.

He told a conference in Oxford: "The green belt remains threatened by unthinking boundary reviews, empty new business parks, isolated housing development on the sites of former institutions, insensitive park-and-ride schemes and myriad small-scale pressures for its development.

"We need more and stronger green belts."

He said inappropriate building should only be allowed in the green belt in very special circumstances and boundaries changed only when circumstances were "exceptional".

In York, the council has been undergoing a major consultation exercise with residents on the future of the city's green belt.

It is thought 19,000 new jobs and 12,400 new homes will be needed over the next 20 years.

Mr Dangerfield said the CPRE was happy with long-standing draft green belt boundaries for York, but it feared planners would recommend changes to the boundaries on both its inner and outer edges.

He said the development of new technology meant York and North Yorkshire was increasingly attractive as a place to live for people working as far away as London.

The pressure for immigration from the West Riding was heightened by the growing strength of Leeds as a financial centre.

Alastair Morrison, City of York Council's head of development and regeneration, said the authority's intention in its review of the boundaries was actually to prevent the "nibbling away" of York's green belt.

Once inner and outer boundaries had been decided and fixed, the belt would provide strong protection from development for the next 20 years.

But he said the council would first have to identify sufficient land to cater for the projected expansion in jobs and housing over that period.

The next step would be to assess just how much could be sited on "brownfield" redevelopment sites within the city.

Updated: 11:12 Wednesday, June 13, 2001