RURAL businesses are calling for a planning system that is less costly and bureaucratic to encourage growth in the countryside.

Harry Cotterell, president of the Country Land and Business Association, made the call to MPs on the Growth and Infrastructure Bill Committee.

The CLA president said he was very much in favour of the Growth and Infrastructure Bill and keen on the emphasis on planning and growth.

He said: "It is almost impossible to expand, grow or start up a new business in rural areas without getting involved with planning.

"The National Planning Policy Framework will greatly improve the planning environment for small rural businesses and we are very much in favour of the presumption for sustainable development."

Mr Cotterell said the bureaucracy and size and scale of the planning system could put off some small-scale rural developers from making an application.

He also welcomed the Bill's amendment to reduce the amount of information required to bring developments forward.

He said: "A lot of the information is not really necessary for a very small development or small proposal.

"There is a considerable number of CLA members who live on the top of a hill who have required flood risk assessments, which is plainly ridiculous but very rarely costs less than £1,000.

"Users of the system have found that, apart from the bureaucracy and cost, quality has diminished over the years."

Mr Cotterell also told the committee that the current position on broadband is a huge barrier to delivering developments.

He said: "You will never get an office rented if you do not have broadband.

It is probably the biggest infrastructure issue in rural areas for conversion – that, and business rates on empty property, which is stopping speculative development."

He said the CLA had welcomed the government's confirmation of new permitted development rights for non-contentious conversion of agricultural buildings.

This was recognition that a lot of development in rural areas was "virtually of no significance to the wider population, beyond what is going on in a farmyard," he said.

Environmental campaigners have a much different view.

Conservationists have described the Growth and Infrastructure Bill as a "below the radar attack" on level-headed planning and protection of the nation's precious environment and countryside.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England says it will do little to deliver important long term economic development, while sending a "mistaken message" that any development.

It also argues that the Bill will create upheaval in planning that will actually damage growth prospects by reducing the certainty and confidence developers and investors need.

The Bill was published on 18 October and received its Second Reading in the House of Commons on Monday 5 November. It is on a fast track to become law by early 2013.

CPRE head of planning John Hoad said: "The Bill is a poor recipe for delivering either growth or infrastructure.

"With environment given such a low priority, we will see schemes for business, housing and roads on greenfields rushed through by cowed councils, and a rash of broadband clutter in our best landscapes and villages."