England is one of the most crowded countries in the world. Over 90 per cent of our population lives in urban areas covering just eight per cent of the land area. This makes how we plan for, and make decisions about, the future of our cities, towns and countryside extremely important. Good planning contributes to urban and rural regeneration, and helps to ensure that people have decent affordable homes in well-designed accessible environments whilst safeguarding our countryside. It is essential that we have an effective planning system to achieve our aim of creating sustainable communities. We are leading the way in reforming the planning system to make it simpler, faster and more accessible. The policy statement Sustainable Communities: delivering through planning sets out the Government’s aims. The reforms seek to change the culture of planning, making it a positive tool to steer development actively to the benefit of everyone.