Planning reforms: applications will be 'slammed in' under new rules He said protecting the green belt was a national requirement, and said sustainability would be the test for whether a plan was in the public interest. "Over and above that, I think the people that live in the places and work in the places that they love actually do have an interest in wanting them to thrive in the future - they want them to retain the character that sometimes they have lost through development being imposed from above," he told BBC Breakfast. What we know from this country and the Continent is that if you involve people from the beginning, you get better development, you get development that is more consistent with the character and that is better for everyone. He added: "It is very hard for people in communities to engage with the planning system, to protect the places that they want to see protected. So the reason that we are making these reforms is that we are transferring the power from the distant unelected bodies to local communities. To do that, it needs to be simpler. England's countryside will be recognised for its "intrinsic value and beauty" under planning reforms, ministers will announce today. Planning officials will be told they have to consider the importance of "ordinary" countryside when deciding whether to approve developments in rural areas. The concession comes after intense campaigning from environmental groups, who warned that the draft version of the reforms gave developers a "licence to build." The Daily Telegraph has also been running a campaign, called Hands Off Our Land, urging ministers to think again. The requirement for planners to recognise the "intrinsic character and beauty" of ordinary countryside was dropped from the draft National Planning Policy Framework when it was published last July. It only offered protections for the Green Belt, National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Sites of Special Scientific Interest. The final version of the framework will reinstate the commitment. The final version of the reforms are likely to prove controversial, however. The draft rulebook includes a new "presumption in favour of sustainable development" which campaigners said puts parts of rural England at risk.