THE implications for the draft Local Plan of the proposed closure of MoD sites in and around York were discussed at the recent meeting of the council Local Plan working group (The Press, December 7).

CPRE (Campaign to Protect Rural England) supports housing development on brown field land as opposed to green field/green belt.

Locally CPRE is also concerned about whether the affordable housing target set out in the Local Plan is deliverable given the financial objectives of the large private housing developers.

During the 1990s a former army barracks became available for housing development near to Freiburg in Germany.

A new community called Vauban, consisting of around 2,000 dwellings, has been developed on the site by means of a concept called Construction Communities.

This type of co-operative building has bypassed large commercial developers with resultant cost reductions of up to 25 per cent.

The land was sold to construction co-operatives and to small local builder/developers.

This form of development which also incorporates the required infrastructure for the scale of housing concerned could be a template for the future development of local vacated MoD land.

This could help to achieve the ambitious affordable housing target specified in the draft Local Plan and provides a boost to the local construction industry and its supply chain.

David Randon, Chairman, CPRE, York and Selby District, Blue Slates Close, Wheldrake, York