The head of the National Trust has announced a new policy of obtaining green field sites in order to subvert the government's recently proposed housing plans.

Sir William Proby, chairman of the trust, made the announcement at the National Trust's annual general meeting in London, and outlined his proposals for buying lands under threat from the government's housing scheme.

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The Trust, which has an annual income of about £350 million from its various contributors plans to coordinate with conservation bodies such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, English Heritage and Natural England, the government’s countryside quango, to buy areas of the countryside in need of 'protection' from the government's plan for three million new homes by 2020.

The Trust recently bought Divis and Black Mountain, an area around Belfast, from the Ministry of Defence.

Other purchases include Wembury Point, near Plymouth, and Wicken Fen nature reserve between Cambridge and Ely. The trust now owns 617,500 acres in total, making it Britain’s biggest private landowner.

(DW/JM)