One of your news stories (26 September, page 10) said that the Campaign to Protect Rural England claimed housebuilders were hoarding land in order to keep house prices high. We have made no such accusation.
What we have found is that the landbanks (land with at least outline planning permission), which the major housebuilders have declared to their shareholders, have been rising in value over the past five years. The great bulk of this increase is not due to mergers and acquisitions.

Furthermore, the output of market housing by the major housebuilders is relatively high compared with what they have been achieving over the past quarter century and, in England at least, appears to be on a rising trend.

What this means is that their arguments for big increases in allocations of greenfield land for housebuilding are entirely unjustified.

Nicholas Schoon, CPRE communications director, London SE1.